Emin’s work always seemed like today’s heat: searing, stripped to the bone. A visual cri de coeur. Why, I ask, is my unmade bed just an unmade bed and hers is art? “Because you didn’t say that yours was art and you didn’t feel that it was. I saw it as art and felt that it was. I said that it was and showed that it was. I have transferred what I feel on to someone else looking at it. That’s the alchemy. That’s the magic. I was the person who had to have the conviction in the first place.”