As I’ve said here before, Exodus, a one-minute loop of Super 8 film that follows a pair of Black men through a crowded London street in 1992, is one of my favorite Steve McQueen works ever. And now everyone can see how it holds up, because it’s on view at Dia in Chelsea for a year.
While trying to find images of McQueen’s new photos, also on view, I came across old photos of his I’d forgotten. At Marian Goodman in November 2001, McQueen showed a video of himself, partly visible, sitting on a hotel bed, bathed in the light of a French TV news report of the US invasion of Afghanistan. Titled Illuminer, it was one of the first works by a contemporary artist to contend with the world taking shape after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
But in that show was also a pair of large photographs that looked like the Milky Way but were actually of asphalt and steam. That kind of instant zoom in and out of perspective, or perception, makes sense in that show. Anyway, turns out the ed. 1 of those photos were sold in 2021 at Phillips. Can you even get 50-inch C-prints made anymore?
Steve McQueen at Dia Chelsea, 20 Sept 2024-Summer 2025 [diaart.org via mgg]
Previously, related, from 2011: Exodus, 1997, Steve McQueen