Deadpan: the film installions of steve mcqueen

• Met aphors crowd in. Seen inW an American cont ext , t h e * house suggest s a sharecrop-^L per's cabin; it s dest ruct ion^ evokes Abraham Lincoln's Civil War caveat , 'a house divided against it self cannot st and,' ref erring t o a nat ion riven by t he quest ion of slavery. (Mr. McQueen is black.) Holland Cot t er on McQueen's Deadpan, New York Times, January 23, 1998. When I walk out int o t he st reet or go t o t he t oilet , I don't t hink of myself as being black. Of course, ot her people t hink of me as black when I walk int o a pub. Obviously being black is a part of me like being a woman is part of you....I am black, yes. I'm Brit ish as well. But as Miles Davis said, 'So what ?' St eve McQueen int erviewed by Pat ricia Bickers, Art Mont hly 202, December 1996. DEADPAN Sometimes it is useful to describe a thing and let others c o me to their o wn conclusions . Steve Mc Q ueen wo rks in film, in the intertexts between cinema and art. His wo rks to date have been shown in gallery or museum situations under very deliberate measured conditions. T h e three pieces I have chosen to discuss here— Be ar (1993), Five Easy Pieces (1995), and Deadpan (1 9 9 7 )— were all shot in black and white 16mm film, edited, transferred to video, and in each case projected floor to ceiling, and from side to side, on o ne wall of a darkened space, with the projector positioned as far back in the opposing direction as is necessary to create that full screen wall without distorting the projected image. T h e films are silent. T h e floors have been polished to reflection. T here are no chairs. I T here is a difference between m sho wing film in a cinema and sho wing # f i l m under these conditions. Bear, Five M Easy Pieces, and Deadpan are not just f f ilms— they are film installations, which Mc Q ueen has chosen to show in galleries and museums because he is interested in manipulating and problematising the gallery and the museum as specific spaces of reception and contestation. Unlike the cinema, where audiences have, since the talkies, bo ught into a contract to remain physically and sensorily (if not mentally) kidnapped for a specified duration , the museological spaces of art invite wandering, and audiences no rmally wield some form of specular c o mmand over exhibits, ho wever peripheral and reticent any one visitor may feel or choose to feel in relation to the ideo lo gy of any particular institution. Mc Q ueen describes the specific perceptual conditions he imposes on the viewers of his wo rk as an attempt to induce a 'kind of blanket effect' in which 'yo u are very muc h involved with what is going on. Y ou are a participant, not a passive viewer. T h e who le idea of making it a silent experiH ) * N k a J o u r n a l of Co n t e m p o r a r y Af r i c a n Ar t ence is so that when people walk into the space they become aware of themselves, of their o wn breathing. Unlike silent movies, whic h weren't really silent because there was always a musical accompaniment in the back gro und, it is real silence. I find it difficult to breathe when I 'm in the space. T here seems to be no oxygen. I want to put people into a situation where they're sensitive to themselves watching the piece.' I find it difficult to not think of myself as a vo yeur when I watch Mc Q ueen's Bear. Voyeurism is a perversion whic h most of us are fortunate eno ugh to engage in every waking mo ment of every day. In Bear, Mc Q ueen casts himself and another pro tagonist...