Steve McQueen, Sunshine State, 2022. Installation view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2022. A Commission for International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2022 ? Steve McQueen. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery, Marian Goodman Gallery and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. Photo Agostino Osio.
Turner Prize winning artist and Oscar winning filmmaker Steve McQueen (London, 1969; lives and works in London and Amsterdam) has created some of the most significant works of moving image over the last 30 years. Featuring works from across Steve McQueen’s career, “Sunshine State” presents an immersive experience of his unique visual language. The exhibition is presented across the Navate space and the exterior of Pirelli HangarBicocca and it includes the world premiere of the new video installation Sunshine State – a work is commissioned by the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2022.
“Sunshine State” is curated by Vicente Todolí, organized in collaboration with Tate Modern London. The exhibition was first presented at Tate Modern in 2020 where it was curated by Clara Kim, The Daskalopoulous Senior Curator, International Art and Fiontan Moran, Assistant Curator, International Art.
Installation view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2022. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery, Marian Goodman Gallery and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. Photo Agostino Osio.
Taking a radical look at the human condition, its dramas and fragility, McQueen’s touching and thought-provoking work asks important questions about urgent issues, such as the construction of identity, belonging, and the right to freedom. His work always aimed at understanding and penetrating reality and the deepest meaning of existence. The six film works and one sculpture in the exhibition are among the most important of McQueen's career, representing free narrative models and unexpected points of view on wide-ranging, intersectional aspects of historical and contemporary social contexts.
Installation view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2022. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery, Marian Goodman Gallery and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. Photo Agostino Osio.
In a career spanning over 25 years, Steve McQueen has created some of the most significant works in the visual arts, using moving image as a sculptural form that moves in space and time. In 1999 he won the prestigious Turner Prize and has also directed four feature films: Widows (2018), 12 Years a Slave (2013), for which he won the Oscar for Best Picture, Shame (2010), and Hunger (2008), which earned him the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2020 he also created Small Axe, his first five-episode mini-series and, most recently, a series of documentaries for the BBC, Uprising (2021), Black Power: A British Story of Resistance (2021) and Subnormal: A British Scandal (2021).
In McQueen’s work, the language of visual art and cinema combine to explore current, pressing issues such as race and post-colonialism. Starting from the experience and oppression of black and racialized communities, McQueen develops a broader reflection on human beings and their identity. In his experimental films and videos, McQueen poetically projects his own presence onto the subjects represented, emphasizing the close link between bodily existence and subjectivity, between reality and its representation. Steve McQueen expanded his work within the exhibition spaces, creating a unique audiovisual experience for visitors. As the artist says: "I am not interested in manipulating people. The complete opposite. I am interested in a truth... the most horrific things sometimes happen in the most beautiful places... I cannot put a filter on life. It's about not blinking." In this way, McQueen also addresses the material and physical quality of moving images, raising questions about the ways in which the film medium can shape the surrounding environment and the viewer's look, and in turn be modified by it.
About the exhibition
Dates: 31 March - 31 July, 2022
Venue: Pirelli HangarBicocca
Courtesy the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca.
