[Back to artist listing] STEVE MCQUEEN
Deadpan, 1997
July 1–31, 2009



At 44 1/2, Creative Time’s presentation of video art on MTV’s outdoor, gilded screen located in the heart of New York City’s Times Square, will showcase the classic video work Deadpan (1997) by Turner Prize–winning artist Steve McQueen, who is representing Great Britain at the 53rd Venice Biennale of Art, Venice, Italy, this summer. Following the phenomenal success of McQueen’s debut feature film Hunger (2008), which won the Camera d’Or at Cannes in 2008, Deadpan in Times Square will activate an already vibrant New York City site in new and unexpected ways. In Deadpan, McQueen restages a stock-in-trade Buster Keaton gag in which a house falls on top of a figure, who somehow emerges unscathed. This slapstick convention, repeated, investigates cinematic conventions and will be especially salient in the media- saturated environment of Times Square.

Creative Time kicked off At 44 1/2 with the overwhelmingly successful presentation of Shallow by Malcolm McLaren in June 2008, and was followed by selections from Mark Tribe’s Port Huron Project, reenactments of classic New Left speeches; early work by the legendary Gilbert & George; and a presentation of work by three emerging artists including Matt Calderwood, Mika Rottenberg, and Guido van der Werve. Most recently, Creative Time presented a series curated by artist Marilyn Minter, which included her own work and that of Patty Chang and Kate Gilmore, investigating what Minter called “the pathology of glamour.” The larger than life, high definition 44 1/2 screen is located on Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets, directly across the street from MTV’s offices and studio. At 44 1/2 is part of Creative Time’s long history of presenting public art in Times Square. McQueen’s presentation was curated by Mark Beasley.

ABOUT STEVE MCQUEEN
Steve McQueen (b. 1969) is a Turner Prize–winning English film and video artist. Working primarily in film, McQueen won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes in 2008 for his debut feature, Hunger, about the 1981 Irish hunger strike. Recent group shows include Hypocrisy: The Sitespecificity of Morality (2009) at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, Norway and The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image (2008) at The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. He is representing Great Britain at the 53rd Venice Biennale of Art, Venice, Italy, this summer. McQueen graduated from Goldsmith College, London in 1993. He lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands.