Three monumental bronze figures by Tracey Emin now stand on the Parvis des droits de l'homme in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, one of the most visible commissions of Art Basel Paris's public programme this week. The sculptures — I Lay Here for You (2018), I Followed You to the End (2024) and I Will Not Be Alone (2025) — were installed ahead of the fair's preview days, which began on Wednesday, and presented by White Cube, the gallery that also represents the artist's gallery show in Paris this season.

Each work shows a solitary female figure, and together they trace an arc from withdrawal through submission to defiance. The installation coincides with an intensely personal moment for the artist. Writing on Instagram on 19 October, just after the bronzes were in place, Emin said she had come to Paris straight after her mother's death, catching the first train from London to avoid spending the day weeping at home. Alone in the city, she found comfort in its museums — Rodin's studio, the Louvre — and credited Paris with helping her recover her sense of self.

The bronzes were among the first public-programme works to draw evening crowds to the Place du Trocadéro, where visitors gathered as much for the tower's nightly light show as for the art. Miami collector Jorge Pérez and his wife Darlene were among those pausing over the sculptures, according to The Art Newspaper, which described how the works carry an intimate reckoning with loss and survival into one of the city's most photographed public spaces.

The installation sits within an expanded citywide public programme that Art Basel Paris has made a signature of its fifth edition: works and performances are staged at the Petit Palais, the Palais d'Iéna, the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine, the Beaux-Arts de Paris and along Avenue Winston-Churchill, all free to the public while the fair itself runs at the Grand Palais until Sunday.