Steve McQueen
Further images
a bed made with stark white sheets to watch television. (This film marks the last time McQueen has appeared in his own work.) A television reporter speaking in French narrates a current affairs program about the deployment of military forces in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The sounds of conflict—notably gunfire and shouting—episodically punc- tuate his presentation.
The relationship of the artist’s body to reflected light becomes the subject of the work. Here the ambient glow of the television (presumably broadcasting unseen images of combat) is the only illumination that articulates the artist’s recumbent form on the bed in the shadows. Throughout the short film, the autofocus feature on the camera strains to render a clear image; the function activates the camera as a searching eye struggling to find its subject. Absent the distinctive glare of the screen, the figure would have remained invisible. McQueen has said of the film: “I was only illuminated by violence. One has an idea of the images on the television but, in fact, what’s happening is that the violence made me present.”
Exhibitions
Steve McQueen, Tate Modern, London, England, 13 February - 11 May 2020
”la Caixa” Collection of Contemporary Art, Whitechapel gallery, London, England, 19 September 2019 - 5 January 2020Damage Control: Art and Destruction since 1950, Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C, 24 October 2013 – 26 May 2014; [travelled to: Mudam Luxembourg - Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, 12 July 2014 – 12 October 2014; Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, Austria, 14 November 2014 – 15 February 2015]
Steve McQueen: Works, Schaulager Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 1 March – 7 July 2013
Steve McQueen: Works, The Art Institute of Chicago, Regenstein Hall, Chicago IL, 21 October 2012 – 6 January 2013
Le Meilleur des Mondes, Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg, 30 January – 24 May 2010
Todas as historias/All the Stories, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 26 July – 12 October 2008
Zonas de Riesgo/ Risk Zones. Contemporary Art Collection “la Caxia” Foundation, CaixaForum Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 23 January – 1 March 2008
The Unhomely. Phantom Scenes in Global Society, 2nd International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville, Seville, Spain, 26 October 2006 – 8 January 2007
Time Clash, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 29 October 2004 – 9 January 2005
Non-Sect Radical, Contemporary Photography III, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan, 17 July – 20 September 2004
Steve McQueen. Into This World, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, England, 1 April – 29 May 2004
Steve McQueen. Speaking in Tongues, ARC, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France, 7 February – 23 March 2003
Lewis Carroll – Confiture demain et confiture hier. Mais jamais confiture aujourd’hui, Centre Régional d’art Contemporain de Sète (CRAC), Sète, France, 3 May – 26 June 2002
Steve McQueen, Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris, London, 10 November -22 December 2001
Collections
MUDAM-Musée d'Art Modern Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland
La Caixa Contemporary Art Collection, Madrid, Spain
Collection Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal
Literature
Kim, Clara and Fiontan Moran, eds., Steve McQueen, London: Tate Publishing, 2020 pp. 112-121 ill.
Wells,
Rachel., ’Samuel Beckett and Steve McQueen: Imprisonment, Sight, and the
Screen’ appears in Reginio, Robert, David Houston Jones and Katherine Weiss,
eds., Samuel Beckett and Contemporary Art, Stuttgart: ibidem
Press, 2017 pp. 241-264, 251 ill.
I want the screen to be a massive mirror,
Basel: Schaulager Basel, Steudler Press, 2013 p. 71 ill.
Steve McQueen: Works, Chicago: Art
Institute of Chicago; Basel: Schaulager Basel; Berlin: Kehrer, 2012 pp. 13, 108-109
ill.
Zonas de risc (Risk Zones),
Barcelona: Fundació La Caixa, 2008 pp. 66-67
Enwezor, Okwui, ed., The Unhomely:
Phantom Scenes in a Global Society, Seville: BIACS, 2006
Amano, Taro, ed., Non-sect radical:
Contemporary photography III, Yokohama: Yokohama Museum of Art, 2004 p.
187, pl. 42
Steve McQueen: Speaking in Tongues, Paris: Paris-Musées, 2003 pp. 95-116 ill.