Steve McQueen

Born in 1969 in London; McQueen now lives and works between London and Amsterdam. Using video installations and photography, he explores the relationship between people and their environments, often using long takes, subtle framing, and intense, focused close-ups. His early works such as Five Easy Pieces (1995) and Deadpan (1997), the latter of which involved McQueen mimicking a famous Buster Keaton stunt, garnered attention for their ability to blend humour and tension while exploring themes of survival and resilience. His work often centres on the complexities of race and power, as well as the ways in which individuals confront their own personal struggles within larger societal frameworks.

Steve McQueen’s lopped film installation Prey is a study in colour, sound and cinematic convention. The work begins with a close-up of an old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder with two large spools, one red and one green, lying in grass. The opening shot is a close-up of the reels turning, emanating an arrhythmic popping and clicking sound, their smooth movement becomes a visualisation of the sound. Halfway through the six-minute duration, the tape recorder moves away from the viewer, bumping along the ground until it eventually rises. The camera follows, we realise it is attached to a balloon which lifts the recorder and the sound it emits off into the blue sky for the second half of the film. At the end it comes back to land and the camera settles on the grass once again. Although the work focusses on the mechanical, human presence is implied via that sound, which although not revealed in the piece, is a recording of tap-dancing feet.