NUMBER 10 NEON
“What are the politics of the figurative neons? Medium provides one route to answer this question; Plagens writes that if there is ‘a medium seemingly made for political art, it’s neon. Not only is it the nocturnal language of our turn-of-this-century era, but it’s synonymous – indeed near-identical – with sending an imperative message: buy, eat, see, drink, sleep, save’.”
The dark paints the panelled walls in iniquity. Not much to see here on this first floor den at Number 10. It’s a through-way to three rooms, drawing rooms where the light is allowed in and the truth, not really. Obvs.
Here the light is lampshade canted, spilling downward like spilt milk, curdled yellow with a hint of peach. It’s niche here. Under-the stairs. Less politically poised. Kinda excessive vis-a-vis the reserved theatre where it leads. A shower room. The walls are not too brown though, considering.
The waist-high lampshades have been hit by a flood of hips flowing purposefully from room to room. This anti-room is unconscious. Transitional. Fluid. Ungendered. It’s a place of holding big breaths before bigger entrances.
Above one panelled door is a pink neon sign with two words underscored by two strikes that taper to a join. More Passion. It’s fast. A shooting star. About to take flight. Celestial. It’s Night’s Delight and Day’s Warning. A self-conscious signature intended to be read as cursive casual.
The artist Tracey Emin probably wrote More Passion many times in a notebook before settling on the last attempt. It's rehearsed passion. Insecure in its need to impress its direct quality in a pink cloud. More Passion is an injunction, like “be happy”, an emotion that Emin claims her neon has showered political dignatories for the last decade in office.
In this place where lawyer-politicians take big breaths before saying bigger nothings, what does More Passion mean politically? Not much. Slogans. Rhetoric. The broadest brush.
Like the weather, neon is changeable. It’s one sign upon another sign upon another. It’s synonymous with the street, the one closer to the gutter, not on political high.
Sensory and sensual, visually and sonically, neon is a gaseous ghost signifying desire in absentia, as the lawyers say. Wonder if they switch off More Passion after hours when its glow kisses the stained streets and mattresses outside in night culture?
Still naughty in its encapsulation of its maker, the short-sighted media — in different words — said More Passion was Tracey Emin lite. And yet the artist is not just one artwork. The artist is everything they have ever made, kept or destroyed.
FYI: Due to the uranium glass in Bruce Nauman’s text and figurative neons from the 1960s breaking down, replicas are made for museums but with the criterion that they be destroyed when the show is over.