Creativity Quote by Tracey Emin

Emin’s genius here is how casually she frames outrage as proof of impact. “They” is doing heavy lifting: an unnamed bloc of critics, gatekeepers, and polite society types who prefer women artists to be tasteful, legible, and grateful. By refusing to specify them, she makes the target expandable - tabloids, trustees, art-school snobs, moral crusaders - anyone who confuses discomfort with danger.

The language is resolutely un-mythic. “Get up their nose” is pub talk, bodily, a little gross, perfect for an artist whose work has long been accused of oversharing and “mess.” It’s a class-coded phrase that resists the museum’s soft-focus reverence; she’s not offering a manifesto, she’s describing irritation like it’s an allergic reaction. “I really wind them up” turns scandal into a kind of craft. Not “I’m misunderstood,” not “I’m brave,” but: I can press the button, and I know it.

The subtext is less “I’m a rebel” than “your standards were built to exclude people like me.” Emin came up in the YBA era where shock, confession, and media attention weren’t side effects; they were part of the distribution system. Her persona - frank, sexual, raw, self-authored - doesn’t just challenge aesthetic norms, it embarrasses the people who rely on those norms to feel superior. She’s naming antagonism as a relationship: if they’re wound up, she’s already in the room, rearranging the furniture.