Tracey Emin

Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Los Angeles, Gagosian Gallery, You left me breathing, November - December 2007
Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Tracey Emin: Angel Without You, December 2013 - March 2014, p. 95, illustrated in colour (another example exhibited)

This work is in very good condition and in full working order. The colours in the catalogue illustration are accurate.
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A powerful exposition of the universal themes of love and regret, I could have really loved you forms part of Tracey Emin’s seminal series of neon signs. In its visually arresting combination of candy pink and vivid electric blue, the present work projects its message with a curiously commanding sense of authority: a poignant lament to a vanished, never to be experienced, love. Amongst Emin’s diverse and innovative artistic production, the neon works stand out as a potent encapsulation of the artist’s highly personal creative language. Curator Cliff Lausen has spoken of the importance of the series within Emin’s career to date: “Amongst her oeuvre, Emin’s neon signs are language at its barest and boldest… Emin’s neons do not offer generalised philosophical phrases or curious non sequiturs. Instead, most take the form of an utterance, which are almost heard as voices by the gallery-goer as much as they are seen” (Exh. Cat., London, Hayward Gallery, Love is what you want, 2011, p. 15). The status of Emin’s neon signs has recently been further recognised by the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, which devoted an entire show to the series between December 2013 and March 2014.

Emin employs neon as a compelling means of personal expression, utilising carefully chosen phrases or statements with an eloquence that belies their brevity. In common with the rest of Emin’s multifaceted oeuvre, there is a strong element of autobiography present within the neon signs, imbuing the selected words with multiple levels of meaning and symbolism. Lausen has argued that Emin’s work suggests a wide variety of emotions from "fear, anger and despair to ecstasy, hope and love" (ibid., p. 9). I could have really loved you superbly embodies these significant strands of Emin’s own closely intertwined life and art, whilst standing as a tribute to the myriad complexities of human relationships and interactions.