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Oscar-winning filmmaker and Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen is doing a live chat and Q&A streaming on Artangel’s website next week. McQueen’s current show at Tate Modern, which we gave five stars to, closed prematurely following lockdown, so he fully deserves a bit of extra time in the spotlight.
McQueen is one of the UK’s most celebrated multi-disciplinary artists. Born in west London, his background is in fine art, for which he won the Turner Prize in 1999. His artwork has always involved film, so his transition in the 2000s to making feature films wasn’t as unusual a step as it might have appeared. Winning an Oscar was though. McQueen’s 2013 film ‘12 Years a Slave’ garnered Best Picture at the 2014 Academy Awards, making him the first black director ever to win an Oscar.
He has subsequently continued to make art, notably his 2019 photographic work ‘Year 3’, for which he took portraits of all of London’s Year 3 school classes. In our review of the show, we called it ‘a brazen, forthright, unapologetic celebration of multicultural London’, saying ‘This insanely mixed group of children [are] seeing themselves in a museum, understanding their differences, recognising that they fit in, that this is their city, and no bigot can take that away from them. This art shows us London now, and it shows us London in the future. It’s not isolated, homogenous or insular, it’s wide open, diverse and brilliant.’
For this live Q&A, McQueen will be talking to Artangel co-director James Lingwood. You are invited to submit questions to McQueen via Artangel’s Twitter (@artangel) and Instagram (@artangel_ldn) using #ArtangelIsOpen. Artangel says of the artist: ‘Artangel’s work with Steve McQueen has allowed an exploration into themes of solitude and grief, collective representation and identity, to develop new work by the artist. Such themes are being revisited globally today.’
Sounds brill. Nice one, Steve!
Steve McQueen is in conversation with Artangel, Mon May 4, 7pm BST. Join live via the Artangel website.
You can do virtual tours of loads of London’s museums and galleries.
In less-good-art news, you can see works by Banksy and Damien Hirst in a virtual gallery.