Steve McQueen: Ashes

Exhibition Website

Feb 15 2017 - Feb 25 2018

The ICA/Boston is pleased to present the U.S. debut of

Ashes

(2002–2015), a video installation by the artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen (b. London, UK, 1969). A standout from the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, Ashes presents footage on two sides of a freestanding screen. One side, originally shot on soft, grainy Super 8 film, shows a young, carefree fisherman named Ashes balancing playfully on a pitching boat against a horizon of blue sky and water. The other side shows a second projection, shot in high definition video, that chronicles Ashes’s unexpected fate. Never seen together, yet linked by a shared soundtrack, the videos conjure an easy vitality and a vivid description of place against the darker forces of society and fate. 

With moving-image works that create exquisite, visceral relationships between bodies and the spaces that surround or confine them, McQueen’s practice has developed from iconic silent videos to poignantly sound-driven works over the past twenty years. McQueen is the recipient of the 1999 Turner Prize and an Academy Award for his 2013 feature film 12 Years a Slave, among many other honors.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

  • Multi-media / Digital / Video
  • British
  • Contemporary
  • Steve McQueen

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