The Times
February 28, 2009
Guest list: The artist and film director Steve McQueen
by Louise Cohen
Video art has always been a controversial business, and few artists have won the argument as definitively as Steve McQueen. The Ealing-born film-maker won the Turner Prize back in 1999 for his black-and-white homage to Buster Keaton � and for those who don�t rate the Turner Prize, he has just won a Bafta for his first feature film, Hunger. Not that McQueen is one to worry about prizes, particularly. His impressive red kilt might have outshone his tux-clad peers at the Baftas � and he was, of course, a gracious winner of the Carl Foreman Award for promising British talent � but McQueen could clearly take it or leave it.
As far as he is concerned, the story of the hunger striker Bobby Sands needed to be told after 27 years of being �swept under the carpet�, but it was never meant to be a crowd-pleaser. �This film needed to be made. I�m extremely pleased with the response, but if you do your best and you can still look in the mirror afterwards, that�s enough. If you feel nervous about what people will think of something then you shouldn�t be doing it.�
The 39-year-old artist has always stayed deliberately out of London�s cultural scrum, choosing instead to live in Amsterdam. Even his Turner Prize win was overshadowed by Tracey Emin�s notorious soiled bed � which was fine by him. �All the candyfloss that comes with it, it�s nice,� he said at the time, �but what I�m interested in is doing it. I�m interested in evidence.�
You can�t deny his talent or humility, but McQueen�s aversion to �candyfloss� has also earned him a reputation for being difficult and unpredictable at times. You can see why � between chatting politely and thanking me warmly for the interview, he refused to discuss subjects including other artists, art spaces, other directors, other films and creative influences, with a swift �not interested�. But get him on to the right subject, and answers spill out before you can catch them. For one, he is excited about his next project � representing Britain in this year�s Venice Biennale.
After passionately describing the minutiae of a Venice sunset, he tells me how excited he is to be making new work and how honoured to be representing his country. Naturally, he won�t yet tell us what he is working on, revealing only that he is tinkering with a fewideas.
But whatever he makes, he is fierce about wanting it to be judged with a clean slate, or screen. �I�m not interested in all that nonsense,� he spits, when I ask him whether he thinks that Hunger has opened more doors for him as an artist. �It�s all about the work. W. O. R. K. When people look at my work in Venice, I don�t want them to think: �This is by the guy that made that film. No, no, no, no, no. I want to be judged on the work and the work alone, not work from the past, or could be doing in the future. No. You don�t have to know anything about me � I�m uninterested in that. End of story.�
Curse that pesky Bafta.
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Web Links
Thomas Dane Gallery, London
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York & Paris
STEVE McQUEEN TO REPRESENT BRITAIN AT THE 2009 VENICE BIENNALE
The Times : Article - Hunger shocks Cannes
Turner Prize Winner 1999
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