Steve McQueen: End Credits 2012-ongoing

Transcending video art, although a highly accomplished and decorated artist, Steve McQueen boldly moved to the mainstream film industry, confronting the collective angst, mastering the art of unearthing identity and race traumas. The horrors exposed, the tension and the drama in McQueen’s bold paint strokes not only do not cajole the public taste but usher it to the corners of human cruelty and absurdness.

From September 24 to October 24 at the Onassis Stegi Exhibition Hall (-1), McQueen presents an epic portrait of an iconic individual – Paul Robeson – in his ongoing work End Credits, 2021-ongoing as part of the 7th Athens Biennale ECLIPSE. A singer and social activist, Robeson became the blacklisted target of FBI when he started to crusade against lynching. His life and art career were destroyed. When his FBI files became partly declassified, Steve McQueen embarked on a long pilgrimage to assemble a monument of epic dimensions of the heroic man. The end credits in films are where all the contributing components of the film are credited. Through thousands and thousands of ever-scrolling pages, End Credits, 2012-ongoing are a purgatory for our collective consciousness towards martyred individuals like Robeson. Like a fountain or a river, End Credits, 2012-ongoing flows endlessly in dozens of hours of a visual and spoken-word sermon mesmerizing in their dark matter and profound, compacted pain.

End Credits, 2012-ongoing, co-produced by Onassis Culture, is being presented as part of the 7th Athens Biennale (AB7) titled ECLIPSE. Designed to reveal the diverse aspects of the transition we are experiencing now, ECLIPSE aims to awaken the audiences’ imagination on the possible parallel worlds and different versions of the future. ECLIPSE is being held in the historic center of Athens from September 24 to November 28, 2021 with the support of Onassis Culture.

A few words on Steve McQueen

Born in London, England in 1969, Steve McQueen is an artist, film director, and screenwriter currently based in London and Amsterdam. His themes are universal and often focus on painful biographies. McQueen has mastered the art of minimalist storytelling to deliver the utmost impact on his viewers. In his own words he "wants to put the public in a situation where everyone becomes acutely sensitive to themselves, to their body and respiration."

Large-scale surveys of McQueen's work have been held at Tate Modern, London in 2020, the Schaulager, Basel in 2013 and the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012. Forthcoming institutional shows include Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2022). Recent solo presentations include Steve McQueen: Year 3, Tate Britain, London (2019-2021), and exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Massachusetts (2017); The Whitworth, Manchester (2017); the Pérez Art Museum, Miami (2017); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2017); the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois (2017); and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016). McQueen has previously participated in Documenta XII (2007), XI (2002) and X (1997), and the Venice Biennale (2015, 2013, 2007, and 2003), representing Great Britain in Venice in 2009.

Most recently he has written and directed Small Axe (2020), an anthology of five films about the West Indian experience in London, and Uprising (2021), a suite of 3 films for the BBC about the New Cross Fire in London in 1981. He has directed four feature films, most recently Widows (2018). His first, Hunger (2008), was awarded the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and his third, 12 Years a Slave (2013), received the Golden Globe, Oscar, and BAFTA awards for best picture in 2014.

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End Credits – Steve McQueen – Onassis Foundation (onassis.org)

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