1997: 'Mad Tracey from Margate' is photographed laughing and trying on friends' clothes. This series of images portrays more of a good time-gal than a mad one. Located at the half-way point of Haywards' retrospective, they are a strange pause of ease in an often turbulent journey through the artists' work. Spread over two floors, charting her career from 1993 to now, the effect given is a show of two halves.

Visitors are greeted by a ramshackle pier flanked by Emin's famous rugs. The juxtaposition of the wooden structure against the 'feminine craft' of the appliqué tapestries immediately introduces the paradoxical themes of Emin's works; combining and thus creating conflict between masculinity, femininity, exotic and local. 'Hotel International' (1993) her seminal piece, is typically Emin's make do and mend agitprop. For such a labour intensive medium, it ironically evokes a quick catharsis by spitting out untamed and and immediate prose: swear words are bookended by spelling mistakes that produce accidental but arch wordplay. The effect is similar to the stand out moment in the exhibition, a black corridor narrated by Tracey's testimonials in bright, sex shop neon. There is a heart behind this brass; the statements plead and whisper rather than shout.

A main criticism of Emin's has always been her self-involvement, which at the beginning of the exhibition is engaging, the second half becomes slightly uncomfortable. Just how much of Emin do you want to see? It's all upstairs, including her used tampons from 1997. You cannot accuse Emin of keeping anything from her audience. Most of the last quarter of the exhibition is dedicated to creamy-hued mono-print daydreams about masturbation. In the middle of these works is a Gothic, oil slick of a self-portrait, 'Black Cat', marking a return to painting, perhaps suggesting having regained control after evidently getting to know her self a bit better.

Until Aug 29

NATASHA MORRIS