Steve McQueen, 'Gravesend' (2007), film still
Image: courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris and London
Plaza Cinema, Truro
Steve McQueen in conversation
with Nicholas Serota
Sunday 3 June, 11am
Booking essential, £5 admission
Steve McQueen is a British artist celebrated for his moving image work, and is also the acclaimed director of award-winning feature films.
An exhibition of McQueen’s film Gravesend (2007) is presented for Groundwork at CAST in Helston, from 5 May to 3 June, in a specially constructed black box space, with exceptional sound and image quality. To coincide with the final day of this exhibition, Steve McQueen will discuss his work in conversation with Nicholas Serota, former Director of Tate.
Gravesend is concerned with the mining of coltan, a dull black mineral used in capacitors, which are vital components in mobile phones, laptops, and other electronics. Juxtaposing an animated fly-by of the Congo River with footage of workers sifting through dark earth and robots processing the procured material in a pristine, brightly lit laboratory, the film’s disjunctions allegorise the very real economic, social and physical distance this material traverses as it moves from the third to the first world. Its final sequence, a time-lapse shot of a sun setting behind smokestacks, brings everything full circle, rendering visual a scene described at the outset of Joseph Conrad’s celebrated novel, Heart of Darkness.
Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen is a British artist celebrated for his moving image work, and is also the acclaimed director of feature films such as ‘Hunger’, ‘Shame’ and ’12 Years a Slave’. He won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 for ‘Hunger' and the FIPRESCI prize for ‘Shame' at the 2011 Venice Film Festival. '12 Years a Slave' was awarded three Oscars at the 2014 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. McQueen won the Turner Prize in 1999 and represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2009. His work is celebrated in both art and cinema contexts. MoreNicholas Serota was Director of Tate from 1988 to 2017. Previously Director of The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford and Director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, Serota has been Chair of Arts Council England since February 2017.