Steve McQueen
Further images
The work opens with a close up of a tightrope, slowly descending into the frame as it tenses under the weight of a cautious performer. We first watch the tightrope walker from the back as she negotiates the space slowly, and then later see her from the front. Through McQueen’s lens, her intensely concentrated face and the isolated movement of her torso have an erotic air. An aerial view of five men hula-hooping is doubled by the shadows cast on the ground in front of them. Interspersed throughout the film are clips of close, almost endo- scopic views of the artist’s face, with color suddenly intruding on the otherwise black- and-white work.
Throughout the film the viewer is aware of the camera as both an object and a participant in the action. This effect is dramatically heightened when the artist urinates and then spits on the camera, which looks up at McQueen from under a glass table. What seems like an act of aggression is also a formal maneuver. The artist’s actions alter both what and how the camera sees.
Provenance
The artistExhibitions
The Body Politic, The Met Breuer, New York
NY, 20 June – 3 September 2017
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
Urban Baroque, Plane Space, New York NY, 16 November – 21 December 2003
A Century of Artist’s Film in Britain, Part 3, Tate Britain, London, England, 3 November 2003 – 25 January 2004
Double Vision, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany, 24 June – 1 August 2001
Steve McQueen, Sala Mendoza, Caracas, Venezuela, 17 September – 26 October 2000; [travelled to: Institute for Contemporary Art, Cape Town, South Africa, 16 November – 17 December 2000; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, 26 April – 17 June 2001; Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico, 21 June – 19 August 2001]
Self Portrait, Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada, 25 September – 31 October 1999
The Space Here is Everywhere: Art with Architecture, Villa Merkel, Bahnwäterhaus, Esslingen am Neckar, Germany, 15 August – 10 October 1999
Steve McQueen, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland, 12 June – 15 August 1999
Steve
McQueen, Institute
of Contemporary Art, London, England, 30 January - 21 March 1999
Steve McQueen. Four Projected Images, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco CA, 27 February – 12 May 1998
Steve McQueen, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York NY, 22 May – 28 June 1997
Steve McQueen, ‘Five Easy Pieces’ & ‘Just Above My Head’, Video Installations, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 26 April – 15 June 1997
Steve McQueen, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, 12 April – 8 June 1997
Steve McQueen. Five Easy Pieces, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago IL, 31 August – 10 November 1996
Infra-Slim Spaces, The Soros Center for Contemporary Art, Kiev, Ukraine, 6 December 1997 – 23 January 1998; [travelled to: Infra-Slim Spaces. The Physical and Spiritual in the Art of Today, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham AL, 12 February – 4 April 1999]
Timing, De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands, February – March 1996
The British Art Show 4, Manchester, England, 12 November 1995 – 4 February 1996; [travelled to: Edinburgh, Scotland, 24 February – 28 April 1996; Cardiff, Wales; 18 May – 21 July 1996]
Mirage. Enigmas of Race, Difference and Desire, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Institute of International Visual Arts, London, England, 12 May – 16 July 1995
Collections
Ishikawa Foundation, Okayama, Japan
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York NY
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Literature
I want the screen to be a massive mirror, Basel: Schaulager Basel, Steudler Press, 2013 pp. 26-27, 29 ill.
Steve McQueen: Works, Chicago: Art
Institute of Chicago; Basel: Schaulager Basel; Berlin: Kehrer, 2012 pp. 20, 38,
68-69 ill.
Kystof, Doris,
ed., Steve McQueen, texts by Gerald Matt, Doris Kystof, Thomas
Miessgang and Ilka Becker, Vienna: Kunsthalle Wien, 2001 p. 54-55 ill.
Schlieker, Andrea, ed., Double
Vision, Berlin: DAAD; London: British Council, 2001
Steve McQueen, Caracas: Sala Mendoza; Cape Town: Institute for Contemporary Art; São Paulo: Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, 2000 (n.p)
Van Noord, Gerrie, ed., Steve McQueen, texts by Robert Storr, Michael Newman and Okwui Enwezor, London: ICA; Zurich: Kunsthalle Zürich, 1999 p. 17 ill.
Molon, Dominic,
ed., Steve McQueen, Chicago: Museum
of Contemporary Art, 1996
Wiehager, Renate, ed., The Space Here is
Everywhere: Art and Architecture, Esslingen: Galerien der Stadt, 1999
Spellbound: Art and Film, text by Martha Gever, London: British Film
Institute; Hayward Gallery, 1996 p. 93 ill.
The British Art Show 4, texts by
Richard Cor, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Thomas Lawson, London: South Bank Centre, 1995
Mirage. Enigmas of Race, Difference and Desire, London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1995