The Bed is Back: Tracey Emin's My Bed at Tate Britain

It has been 15 years since Tracey Emin's Bed was last shown at Tate when it was the most talked about nominee for the Turner Prize.

Since then like the artist herself it has been on quite a journey. It was bought by Saatchi who exhibited it in both his gallery and his own home. In 2014 it was bought by Count Christian Duerckheim for a staggering £2.5 million. The Count in turn has lent it to the Tate gallery for a period of 10 years.

So much has been written about this work that I will not dwell on its history and the impassioned debates it inspires about what art is, how meaning is stored in objects, the importance of authentic objects and sensationalism. Although of course these are all important parts of what makes it what it is.

What interests me about this work is seeing it again at the Tate. It is easy to think that permenant collections stay the same but they are always changing and now My Bed is seen alongside a range of works that open up a fasinating dialogue with it. It has gone from being part of the temporary Turner Prize exhibition to being seen as an integral part of the history of British art.

Emin has helped curate the room in which the work itself will be shown. She has chosen to show it alongside some of her ink drawings produced in 2014 and gifted to the gallery and two works by Francis Bacon. The impression these dynamic works create in this small space is one of turbulence reflecting her emotional state at the time that the bed was conceived. The link with Francis Bacon is a logical one the two artists share a hair trigger and emotional turbulence they both lived big and fast and as a result their work is expressive and charged with their respective personalities and pains.

But of course the room is a small part of the overall gallery and seeing it there got me thinking about some of the other links. One that sprung immediately to mind is a Tate Britain favourite Henry Wallis' The Death of Chatterton. It is no secret that Emin's Bed is considered a self portrait of the artist in her darkest moment although it is sometimes forgotten that in an earlier incarnation a hangman's noose used to hang above it making the theme of suicide more explicit. It is interesting to look at the similarity between the works despite the fact that they belong to such different traditions. We see Chatterton in his bed with the signs and symbols of his life strewn around him. Instead of condoms suitcases and vodka bottles we have a discarded coat, torn up letters and an arsenic bottle.

A second connection which I am sure is not entirely coincidental is the fact that this display coincides with the Nick Waplington/Alexander McQueen show. McQueen took his life in 2012 and it is a theme that is difficult to entirely forget as you go around the exhibition. You get the sense that he was preoccupied with his own legacy with creating something memorable and getting all of the information down through his clothes and through the photo book the two produced together. In the Exhibition Susannah Frankel talks about McQueen being very aware of the Horn of Plenty as his last collection as a young man. The Juxtaposition of My Bed and this reflection on McQueen in the same gallery suggest a dialogue between creativity, survival, legacy and youth.

The Final link that occurred to me is a more general one. Looking at the bed now it is clear that it has become something else it is a sort of time capsuale not just of Emin's life and the history of the Young British Artists but of the 90's. As you go through the gallery from the 1600's to the present day you see a series of moments they are shown to be distinct by the objects included in them. Take The Portrait of William Style of Langley on show in the 1640 room.

We do not know the artist of this work but it can be dated to the 17th century because of the fashion and the objects shown within it. The same is now true with Emin's Bed. The fact the Marlboro cigarettes do not have health warnings, the old fashioned orangina bottle even the type of razor these details all date the work. They allow us to look at it through a different lens making it not just an art work but an artifact.

There are so many more connections to be discovered so I do encourage anyone to come and have a look My Bed will be on show at Tate Britain from 31st March 2015.

Seeing how Reality becomes Fantasy: Nick Waplington/ Alexander McQueen: Working Process

Alexander McQueen is the name on every London based fashonista and gallery goers lips at the moment. The V&A are holding the Savage Beauty exhibition which proved a sell out success when it was at the Metropolitan in New York. Now almost four years later it has come to London bringing the clothes back to McQueen's home turf.

Endless column inches have been written about this show there was even a program on the BBC where Tinie Temper takes us around the star studded private view.

Less attention has been given to the Tate Britain's Nick Waplington/Alexander McQueen: Working Process exhibition and it is on this one that I shall focus.

Before I start one major disclaimer **There are no dresses in this exhibition** If you want to ogle over his astounding designs then this is not the show for you but believe me it brings plenty of other fascinating things to the party.

The exhibition shows the photographs of British photographer Nick Waplington. Waplington is better known for his early gritty photographs of his family and friends shot in Aspley Estate in Nottingham. In these we are presented with screaming children, men under cars, adults clutching fags, tinsel laden Christmas trees all set against a backdrop of garish 70's wallpaper and shag carpet. They capture an image of hectic, chaotic but also very loving family life. More recently his work has focused on Jewish settlers in the West bank. (incidentally his Instagram feed is great)

Certainly not the archetypal fashion photographer. Yet he was the man that McQueen looked to when he wanted to create a photographic document of his iconic 2009 show the Horn of Plenty. The match is in fact a perfect one and the collaborative photobook that the pair produced reflects both of their interests and personalities.

The images take us through the development of the Horn of Plenty catwalk show, as well as focusing on photographs taken in McQueen's studio the pair incorporated Waplington's stunning photographs of that oh so glamorous fashion venue... landfill sites.

At first glance this may seem like a strange combination however the notion of recycling and reusing old fabrics designs and other materials was central to this particular show and the starkly contrasting images do in fact compliment each other. The fashion photographs allow us to look at the beautiful colours in the landfill images the elaborate textures they create, while the landfill images remind us of the transience of the very nature of fashion, disposable culture and McQueen's interest in recycling his ideas.

The images take you through the process of creating the show we see the elaborate moodboards, Sarah Burton (who of course now heads the Alexander McQueen brand) helping pin the designs onto models, models being squeezed into corsets, magnificent hats being created by Philip Treacy and every little detail being closely examined to create the most dramatic effect possible. One of the striking things about the exhibition is the extent to which Lee is involved in the process there are endless shots of him in his slightly creased shirt micromanaging the design process.

The final room is undeniably the most dramatic the images shown here are the last phase in the process, showing the moment just before the models go on stage.

The room is dark with black walls and bright spotlights angled straight on to the works so they seem to jump off the wall. I can't help but think of it as the moment just before reality becomes fantasy because that is what McQueen's shows are really works of  pure carefully crafted fantasy.