NYFF '08: Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen is one of Britain’s most influential artists.  Over the last decade he has opened up the ways in which artists work with film.  Born in London in 1969, he attended Chelsea School of Art and Goldsmiths’ College, after which he spent a year at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York.

In the last decade, McQueen’s work has been shown extensively in museums around the world and his work has been acquired by major institutions including the Guggenheim, MOCA, Tate and the Centre Pompidou.  He won the Turner Prize in 1999.  In 2002 McQueen was awarded the OBE, and received a commission from Artangel.  The same year he participated in Documenta XI and since then he has been the subject of several major solo exhibitions, including those held at the Fondazione Prada and the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. 

Commissioned by the Imperial War Museum and the Manchester International Festival, the art work Queen and Country by McQueen commemorates the British service personnel who have been killed in the war in Iraq.  The work was created in response to a visit Steve made to Iraq in 2003, following his appointment by the Imperial War Museum’s Art Commissions Committee as an official UK war artist.  The project takes the form of a series of ...

Steve McQueen is one of Britain’s most influential artists.  Over the last decade he has opened up the ways in which artists work with film.  Born in London in 1969, he attended Chelsea School of Art and Goldsmiths’ College, after which he spent a year at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York.

In the last decade, McQueen’s work has been shown extensively in museums around the world and his work has been acquired by major institutions including the Guggenheim, MOCA, Tate and the Centre Pompidou.  He won the Turner Prize in 1999.  In 2002 McQueen was awarded the OBE, and received a commission from Artangel.  The same year he participated in Documenta XI and since then he has been the subject of several major solo exhibitions, including those held at the Fondazione Prada and the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. 

Commissioned by the Imperial War Museum and the Manchester International Festival, the art work Queen and Country by McQueen commemorates the British service personnel who have been killed in the war in Iraq.  The work was created in response to a visit Steve made to Iraq in 2003, following his appointment by the Imperial War Museum’s Art Commissions Committee as an official UK war artist.  The project takes the form of a series of postage stamp sheets featuring photographic portraits of individual men and women who have lost their lives in the conflict so far.  Each stamp also bears the standard profile of Her Majesty the Queen, the sovereign in whose name they went to fight.  The Art Fund is supporting this project; until real stamps are issued the work is incomplete.   

McQueen was commissioned by Robert Storr to create two new films, GRAVESEND and UNEXPLODED, for the Italian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007.   Steve McQueen is represented by Marian Goodman Gallery in New York/Paris and by Thomas Dane Gallery in London.