Politics & Power Quote by Tracey Emin

The line lands with the tired heat of someone who has learned that gatekeeping rarely announces itself as gatekeeping. Emin lists the polite alibis institutions love: “too conservative,” “didn’t fit within the budget,” “millions of different reasons.” It’s not a rant; it’s a catalogue of bureaucratic evasions. The repetition of “time and time again” turns rejection into a rhythm, suggesting that the real decision happened long before the committee meeting, long before the spreadsheet, long before anyone pretended it was about “fit.”

What makes it work is the way the excuses contradict each other. “Too conservative” is almost comic coming from Emin, an artist whose brand has been rawness, sexual candor, confession. The phrase hints at a deeper absurdity: institutions can reject the same work for being too much and not enough, too risky and too safe, depending on what protects the institution in that moment. “Budget” is the evergreen shield - neutral, managerial, impossible to argue with without sounding naive. She implies that taste is being laundered into policy.

The subtext is about power, not aesthetics. Committees don’t just select art; they select which kinds of lives and voices get framed as culturally valuable. Emin’s frustration isn’t only personal. It’s an indictment of the arts ecosystem where risk is fetishized in theory but punished in practice, and where “reasons” multiply precisely to avoid stating the simplest one: we don’t want you, not yet, not like this.