What has Tracey Emin been up to since her show that opened the refitted and renamed Modern Art Oxford back in November 2002?

A mid-career retrospective until August 29 at the Hayward Gallery, London has the answers. And there’s plenty; Tracey Emin: Love is What You Want fills the concrete spaces of the Hayward as well as two outdoor terraces. As ever, Mad Tracey from Margate (her words, not mine, from one of her famed appliquéd blankets) is the star of the show, her life, her feelings, her demands, family, losses, loves, you name it. But it’s not about her ego, she says: it’s about her art, and that always starts off personally.

You get a sense of this seeing her work en masse. Taken individually some of it seems a bit adolescent (OK, some was done early in her two-decade career; Emin admits being embarrassed seeing the tampons again), and themes repetitive, even obsessive, but taken as a whole it works. There’s painting, drawing, photography, textiles (including 12 appliqué blankets displayed well together, their stitched drawings, words and text bouncing off one another), plus video and sculpture; some have seldom been shown, and some specially commissioned for the show. Emin calls it her most important show to date, “the biggest moment of my art career”.

One of the first things visitors saw at MAO was an insult on a bright neon sign. Neon again features strongly, and insults, if tempered (there’ll be no naming lovers in future either, she says). Shouted in capitals, or whispered in frail writing or drawing, the frank bursts of emotion she shows in her art are the sort of thing anyone’s felt, or said, even if only sotto voce. Words are very much her strength, their very ordinariness peculiarly affecting.

At the Hayward, 16 neon messages are splashed across the walls of a darkened room, all in her scrawly handwriting. They include a heart that seems to float on the end wall saying “Love is What You Want” (taken from a Marc Bolan song). Some words are partly crossed out; changes of mind, but not forgotten.

There’s another chance to see Knowing My Enemy (2002) shown at MAO. This large part-collapsing wooden pier was made in response to her father’s dream of living in a hut on a beach. It straddles the Hayward’s opening room, and made of salvaged timber with a patchwork-curtained shack at its end suggests lonesomeness, longing, precariousness, absence. To my mind, it’s one of her most impressive works. I also liked the trios of sculptures on the outdoor terraces.

Her drawings (actually monoprints) in their trademark fuzzy line can be quite moving, despite some being hard to take. Unflinching honesty — as well as humour — is another Emin trademark. Few artists reveal the intimacies of their lives so freely. The flickering animation of 200 drawings of the artist masturbating called Those who Suffer Love (2009) is surprisingly effective, and somehow conveys a fragile beauty more than sensuality.

“Love,” Emin says is what she wants to come out of this show. Paradoxical really given that an awful lot of what’s here deals with psychological trauma, rape, abortion, loss, longing, and fury. But in no way is this show as gloomy as that it now sounds! “Love” is in its title, after all. And I think she will get what she wants from it — and renewed respect. It’s terrific. Go if you can. It speaks volumes. See: www.southbankcentre.co.uk or the mini-site: www.loveiswhatyouwant.com.

Two iconic works are not in the show: The Tent was destroyed in a fire in 2004; and My Bed destined for a Saatchi show next year.