On This Day – The Bed

Monday, July 2nd, 2018
#OnThisDay
On July 2 2014 Tracey Emin’s My Bed sold at Christie’s in London for £2.2m. First created in Waterloo council flat in 1998, the bed, consisting of box frame, mattress, bed linens, pillows, and with associated bedroom objects was exhibited at the Tate Gallery in 1999. Inspired by the artist’s own relationship breakdown, the instillation shocked the art world. The tantalising, uncompromising and tangible statement of the unkempt bed, surrounded by its detritus of everyday life, provided a stark window on confessional art, female sexuality and conformity, or rather a lack of it. My Bed is both birth and death, love and loss, childhood and emergence. The empty bed, the crumpled sheets, the stained mattress, the desolation that speaks of tragedy, it is pure Shakespeare, here coyness is lost, the raw emotion is all that is left.
Listen to the unexpected history of the bed!
Or why not check out our magazine post on the bed in World War One!
Or perhaps a peek at Samuel Pepys’s private life via the marital bed!
More Magazine Articles

#On This Day – The History of Writing
17, 7, 2019 - #WorldEmojiDay The 17th of July is World Emoji Day. Celebrated since 2014 it has been claimed .... Read More

#On This Day – The Letter
20, 3, 2019 - #OnThisDay Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, founder of Princetown, laid the foundation stone for Dartmoor .... Read More

#On This Day – The Cuban Missile Crisis
29, 6, 2020 - #OnThisDay May 1191 proved to be a busy month for Richard I, otherwise known as Richard the .... Read More
Subscribe to our newsletter
Keep up to date with Histories of the Unexpected