Artist/filmmaker Steve McQueen, born in London and currently living in Amsterdam, has been making films since 1993, with his first film, “Bear”. He has has won BAFTA, a Caméra d’Or, a Turner Prize and an OBE award. He has received a lot of attention from his first feature film, “Hunger”, released this year though IFC FIlms. Set in 1981, “Hunger” is about the last six weeks of the life of the Irish republican hunger striker Bobby Sands. This film is shocking and impressing critics and film lovers worldwide.
So, how does he follow all that up?
Recently, Steve was in Chicago for the opening of the new wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, designed by Renzo Piano, and also for the opening of his latest piece, a 15 minute film to “Girls” by Tricky, which also opens in the new wing. Steve has also created an exhibit called Queen And Country, in response to a visit he made to Iraq in 2003 following his appointment by the Imperial War Museum’s Art Commissions Committee as an official UK war artist. Queen and Country was also commissioned by Manchester International Festival.
During the six days McQueen spent in Iraq, he was moved and inspired by the camaraderie of the servicemen and women that he met. He proposed that portraits of those who have lost their lives during the conflict be issued as stamps by Royal Mail.
‘An official set of Royal Mail stamps struck me as an intimate but distinguished way of highlighting the sacrifice of individuals in defence of our national ideals.
The stamps would focus on individual experience without euphemism. It would form an intimate reflection of national loss that would involve the families of the dead and permeate the everyday – every household and every office.’
While discussions were under way with Royal Mail, Steve made Queen and Country – a cabinet containing a series of facsimile postage sheets bearing multiple portrait heads, each one dedicated to an individual, with details of name, regiment, age and date of death printed in the margin.
The images were chosen by the families of the deceased.
Viewers are invited to pull out the double-sided panels bearing the sheets from a wooden box and thereby create an intimate space to contemplate the imagery.
This weekend, he also debuts a new piece as Britain’s ambassador at the 53rd Venice Biennale called Giardini.
Steve talks about this work in the video above.
I honestly thought he was just some first time director making a movie with a white cast. I didn't know he was this deep. Are there any American artists trying to do a tribute to the troops like his stamp idea? I really like that idea.
I like the way this guy thinks! Haven't seen "Hunger" but now that I see how he thinks, I will definitely check for it. I imagine it will be on DVD soon because I haven't sen it in any theaters near me.