Tracey Emin opened her new exhibition in front of a star-studded audience at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh last night.
Guests included a number of influential artists including Sam Taylor Wood and her partner, Jay Jopling, owner of White Cube Gallery where Emin's work is shown, as well as other celebrities including author Ian Rankin and actor Orlando Bloom who all arrived to view Emin's collection before sitting down to a meal in the museum's grounds.
In an entrance not exactly befitting a movie star, Bloom arrived with Emin's aunt in a black taxi towards the end of the show. Wearing a suit jacket and a pair of jeans, he looked relaxed and was jovial with Emin and the gallery staff.
About 100 guests were expected, but the event was a generally low-key affair and attracted very few members of the public.
Emin herself, whose works have courted controversy in the past, also arrived fashionably late for her own event but she did arrive in a bit more style, driven in a silver BMW to the entrance.
Emin has previously voiced concern about the possible reaction from critics to her work, but despite commenting that she was "very tired" she looked relaxed at the prospect of showcasing her work to friends and colleagues.
The exhibition, which will be open to the public from today, includes her famous and controversial work My Bed, Emin's offering when she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999.
A National Gallery insider said: "Having such a well-known artist as Emin exhibiting her work in Edinburgh is undoubtedly a coup for the gallery which will now see itself as a genuine contender to the likes of the Tate Modern when it comes to attracting world-renowned artists."
Given the often explicit nature of her work, the gallery will be well aware that the retrospective may not be to everyone's taste, but it says it will ensure that everyone who visits is made fully aware of the type of work they are about to see. A warning is also included on the gallery's webpages for the exhibition, which runs until November 9.
The Emin retrospective is the blockbuster exhibition at this year's Edinburgh Art Festival. It's the first major retrospective of Emin's 20-year career as an artist and has been described as "a canny piece of programming".
Apart from fellow Young British Artist Damien Hirst, few of her contemporaries can generate the kind of press attention that Emin garners. The exhibition also shows that the EAF, a relative newcomer in art festival terms, has come of age, establishing a sound track record of attracting major shows by significant UK artists.
Emin's career has been both controversial and stellar. In 1997, her work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 - a tent covered with embroidered names - was shown at Charles Saatchi's Sensation exhibition. It was destroyed in a warehouse fire in 2004. The same year, she became a tabloid sensation when she appeared drunk and a little disorderly on a live Channel 4 TV discussion.
In 1999, she was a Turner Prize nominee and exhibited My Bed, an installation consisting of her own unmade dirty bed with used condoms and blood-stained underwear.
In 2007, she represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. Emin works across media including needlework, sculpture, drawing, video and installation, photography and painting.
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