Another sort of art forgery is being investigated by British police, but there’s a twist: someone is impersonating Turner Prize-winning artist Tracey Emin in a mass mailing sent to her neighbors “explaining” her supposed plans for a swimming pool to be constructed inside of a building in Spitalfields she acquired in 2008 for ?Ǭ�4 million pounds. Emin pledged to keep the integrity of the building’s character when she renovated, but the letter says Emin plans to raze three warehouses to create an artists workspace there.

Her first planning application for the site was rejected, with a petition signed by 20 people opposing the project. But a second application in August was accepted by Tower Hamlets planning department.

The satirical note, circulated to shops and homes in the Brick Lane area, is addressed to ?��Ǩ?�Dear Spitalfields neighbours?��Ǩ�� and reads: ?��Ǩ?�You?��Ǩ�Ѣre all so wonderful and I feel really blessed to be loved and cherished by the community.?��Ǩ��

Referring to the plans, it adds: ?��Ǩ?�There was a real East End Dunkirk spirit. We fought and we prevailed! I might be a famous Turner Prize artist with a national collection of modern British art at the Tate, but you know, at heart, I?��Ǩ�Ѣm still just your neighbour, Tracey.?��Ǩ��

It also insinuates that Emin is out of touch with her neighbours, saying: ?��Ǩ?�A maverick must live and breathe!?��Ǩ��

Emin?��Ǩ�Ѣs handwriting often appears on her artwork, making it easily recognisable to those familiar with her style.

Steffen Huck, a resident who received the letter, told The Times: ?��Ǩ?�It was very clear it was not from her. There were no spelling mistakes.?��Ǩ��

Boom-tsk!

Below Emin quite drunk on UK TV:

 
Along with Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, Marc Quinn belongs to that select group known, for better or worse, as The Young British Artists (YBAs).  While Hirst has his formaldehyde-dipped sharks, and Emin has her unmade beds, Quinn is perhaps best known for Siren, his solid-gold, wildly contorted statue of Kate Moss, of whom the artist calls, charmingly, a “cultural hallucination.” 

You can watch below as Quinn explains how, in creating Siren, he drew inspiration from a ‘70s museum trip to see Tutankhamun.  Okay, a Goldfingered Kate Moss is nice, but I’m more intrigued by the Quinn piece unveiled yesterday at London’s National Portrait Gallery:

Quinn has been making casts of his own head and creating models using his own frozen blood since 1991.  He has made a new one every five years to document how he is aging, but the first three are all overseas.  The gallery said the acquisition of the latest edition, made in 2006 and entitled “Self,” was a major addition to its contemporary collection.

“Quinn’s ‘Self’ is an outstanding acquisition—a major icon of contemporary British art, both startling and revealing,” said Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery.  The gallery paid 300,000 pounds for what it describes as an “unconventional, innovative and challenging” piece of art, bought using a grant from the Art Fund charity and other donations.

Quinn used about nine or 10 pints of blood for the artwork, which he said was all about pushing the boundaries.  “To me this sculpture came from wanting to push portraiture to an extreme, a representation which not only has the form of the sitter, but is actually made from the sitter’s flesh,” he said. “It only exists in certain conditions, in this case being frozen, analogous to me, with a person being alive.

 
London Gallery Acquires Blood Head

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