For more than 30 years, artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen has continually investigated the possibilities inherent in film—as a material, documentary tool, and storytelling medium—resulting in work that is formally inventive and politically pointed. Often delving into power relations, McQueen’s films and videos capture the experience of living both within and in opposition to hierarchical structures, critically examining current social issues by drawing on the histories of cinema and video art and the reduced formal vocabulary of Minimalism.
Steve McQueen at Dia Chelsea unites three works that explore narratives of the African diaspora from across two decades of the artist’s career. The presentation centers on Sunshine State (2022), a two-channel, dual-sided video projection that enlists a story about McQueen’s father to examine notions of identity and racial stereotypes. Originally commissioned by the International Film Festival Rotterdam, this presentation of Sunshine State marks its debuts on the East Coast of the United States, throwing its eponymous connection to Florida into sharp relief.
Also on view are Exodus (1992–97), one of McQueen’s earliest works, a film which follows two West Indian men through the streets of London, and Bounty (2024), a brand-new set of photographs featuring flowers found in Grenada, the artist’s parents’ place of origin. Taken together with Bass (2024), McQueen’s commission for Dia Beacon, on view concurrently, these two presentations interweave the personal and political across diverse spaces and media as McQueen meditates on his ancestry and the grand historical subject of the Middle Passage.
