Exerpt taken from a review of "Mighty Silence," by Michael Rush Performing Arts Journal 19.3 (1997) 59-64The Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights reserved.Copyright © 1997"...The artist then startles us with a shot (from guess where? yes) looking up at a man (McQueen himself again) pissing a substantial amount of liquid onto the camera. (The gallery notes tell us that he shot this through a glass tabletop.) Like Bruce Nauman who juxtaposes seemingly incongruent images next to each other on different monitors, McQueen jolts our passive viewing with forceful shifts of content and emotion. Just as we are luxuriating in the gentle sway of the woman's dress, he literally pees on us and says, "She's not yours to have." Again McQueen denies any political, racial, or social subtext to these shots, but what's a viewer to think when the film's director urinates on her? He's not merely appearing in the frame (as stage director Tadeusz Kantor used to do from the sidelines in his plays); his editing of these images together may easily be seen as an aggressive and even hostile act. In a not very informative interview in early 1997, McQueen was asked about the significance of this scene. The interviewer said the scene reminded her of the opening sequence of Sunset Boulevard, where the camera looks up at the body of William Holden floating in a pool; to this McQueen responded, "I wanted a situation where I was peeing while people, the audience, would be under me, as it were--the dynamics of that situation." Of course. "The dynamics of that situation." What??? And what exactly are the dynamics of that situation? And who but a movie-drenched critic would think of Sunset Boulevard, while the director of the film she is watching is peeing on her? Certainly this is a strong image (if not original, as anyone aware of the early work of Robert Whitman, Shigeko Kubota, and various Fluxus and Happenings artists is well aware), replete with interpretative and emotive possibilities of which even the director was perhaps unaware...."
Steve McQueen, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Spring, 1997
Profile link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/544419.stm
STEVE MCQUEEN
Artist Bio
Born: London, England, 1969
Education: Chelsea School of Art, London, England, 1989-90
Goldsmith College, London, England, 1990-93
Tisch School of Arts, New York University, New York, New York, 1993-94
Awards: Turner Prize, Tate Gallery, London, England, 1999
DAAD Artist in Residence, Berlin, Germany, 1999
ICA Futures Award, 1996
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2007
"For Queen and Country," A Commission by Steve McQueen, Manchester Central Library, England. 2006
"Caresses," Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Marugame, Japan.
Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris, France. 2005
“Steve McQueen,” Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy.
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
2004
South London Gallery, London
Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts 2003
"ARC/Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
Tate Egg Live," Tate Britain, London, England (one-time performance) 2002
"FOCUS: Steve McQueen," Art Institute of Chicago
"Steve McQueen: Caribs' Leap/Western Deep" ArtAngel at Lumiere, London, England; Fundacio de Serralves, Porto, Portugal; Mead Gallery, University of Warwick, England; Fundacio Tapies, Barcelona, Spain 2001
Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris, France
Vienna Kunsthalle, Vienna, Austria
Museu de Arte Moderna de S 2000
Sala Mendoza, Caracas, Venezuela
Institute for Contemporary Art, Cape Town, South Africa
'Barrage,' DAAD, Berlin
'Cold Breath', Delfina Projects, London
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, New York
1999
"Steve McQueen," Institute of Contemporary Art, London, England; Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris, France
1998
"Four Projected Images," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam
1997
"Deadpan," The Museum of Modern Art, Project Room, New York, New York
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, New York
Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany
Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Institute of Visual Arts (INOVA), Milwaukee, Wisconsin
1996
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2008
" The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image," The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC 2007
52nd International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy.
"Edit! Photography and Film in the Ellipse Collection," Ellipse Foundation, Cascais, Portugal,
"Equal, That Is, To The Real Itself," Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Curated by Linda Norden,
"Electrones Libres: A Selection of Works from the Lemaître Collection," Tabacalera Donosita, San Sebastian, 2006
"The Starry Messenger: Visions of the Universe", Compton Verney
2005
Double Feature, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
2004
"Die Neue Kunsthalle III," Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
"WOW (The Work of the Work)," Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
"Faces in the Crowd, Picturing Modern Life from Manet to Today," Whitechapel, London, England 2004-03
"Fast Forward: Media Art from the Goetz Collection," ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany
2003
-"Utopia Station," Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
-"Outlook," Technopolis, Benaki Museum and The Factory, Athens, Greece
"Utopia Station Poster Project," Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
2002
Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany
"Moving Pictures," Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
"Video Acts: Single Channel work from the collection of Pamela and Richard Kramlich and the New Art Trust," P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York 2001
"Public Offerings," The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, California
"Mirror's Edge," Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy; Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland 2000
"Beauté in Fabula," Palais des Papes D'Avignon, Avignon, France
"Mirror's Edge," Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia
"Unhoused," Antiquo Collegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City
1999
"Kunst mit art with architecture," Villa Merkel und Bahnwärterhaus, Esslingen, Germany
"Geschichten des Augenblicks," Lenbachhaus Kunstbau, Munich, Germany
"infra-slim spaces," Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama
"Seeing Time: Selections from the Pamela and Richard Kramlich Collection of Media Art," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
"Retrace your Steps: Remember Tomorrow," Sir John Soane's Museum, London, England
"Mirror's Edge," BildMuseet, Umea, Sweden
"Common People," Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene d'Alba
Turner Prize, Tate Gallery, London
1998
"Ironisch/Ironic," Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland
"Images," Festival of Independent Film and Video, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
"Wounds," Moderna Museet, Stockholm
1997
Documenta 10, Kassel, Germany
2nd Johannesburg Biennial, Johannesburg, South Africa
1996
"Timing," De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
"Life/Live," ARC/Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
1995
"Mirage: Enigma of Race, Difference and Desire," Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England
The British Art show 4, Manchester and tour
"X/Y," Musée National d'Art Moderne-Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
1994
"Acting Out: The Body in Video, Then and Now," Royal College of Art, London, England
©Marian Goodman Gallery
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