Steve McQueen at Galerie Marian Goodman: Distance and Clarity in Video and Photography

The exhibition at Galerie Marian Goodman in Paris (10 November – 22 December 2001) featured two photographs on the ground floor and two videos downstairs: Prey (1999) and Illuminer (2001). The photographic diptych More shows cloudy sky reflected in dark asphalt flecked with yellow, evoking the work of Gabriel Orozco and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and continuing McQueen's Barrage (1998) series. Prey is a long tracking shot of a portable tape recorder hidden in grass, attached to a white weather balloon, rising and disappearing. Illuminer (2001), created for this exhibition, shows a man (possibly McQueen) entering a hotel room, turning off the light, and lying on a bed while a television becomes the only light source. The TV audio gradually becomes clear: a French news report about US Marines training for deployment to Afghanistan after 9/11. The video critiques the relationship between image, sound, and truth, suggesting that clarity comes from quantity of effects rather than quality of message.