Bed and Bard as Tracey plans big Homecoming
IT is difficult to see any connection between Robert Burns and artist Tracey Emin, whose best-known work is an unmade bed – but the controversial Londoner has been chosen to help celebrate Scotland’s Year of Homecoming in 2009.
The celebration, on the 250th anniversary of the Bard’s birth, will mark Scotland’s contributions to the world. First Minister Alex Salmond said at the event’s launch at Edinburgh Castle that there are 100 million Scots across the planet and urged as many as possible to visit their homeland next year.[>
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Among the events he unveiled was an exhibition of art inspired by Burns to be held in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library and featuring works by Scots artists John Byrne, Graham Fagen and David Mach – and Tracey Emin. A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “Burns is the inspiration for the exhibition and Tracey is one of the artists we have asked to contribute. It is not necessary for her to be Scottish. It may even be that she will have to look at Burns’s work for the first time to get her inspiration.”[>
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The festival runs from Burns night, January 25, until St Andrew’s Day, November 30.[>