{"id":7692,"date":"2023-03-15T17:18:19","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T08:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/_sys2024\/en\/?p=7692"},"modified":"2023-04-04T11:22:27","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T02:22:27","slug":"steve-mcqueen-sunshine-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/screening\/steve-mcqueen-sunshine-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve McQueen “Sunshine State”
Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen<\/small>
2023.1.26 – 2.12<\/small>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve McQueen giving a talk at International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2023. \u00a9Kuriko Sato<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A cry for prayer through a father\u2019s story<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For Steve McQueen, who won the Academy Award for Best Picture with his third feature film, \u201c12 Years a Slave\u201d (2013), visual expression always carries a personal message. Whether he\u2019s working in popular media such as cinema or with the video installations he has been creating since the 1990s, the fundamental principles of McQueen\u2019s work remain the same. How to elevate things derived from personal experience into universal art is what matters most to him.<\/p>\n

But perhaps never before has he projected a personal experience as candidly than in this new artwork.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen\u00a0<\/span>\u00a9Kuriko Sato<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

McQueen\u2019s first new installation in three years, the video project \u201cSunshine State\u201d was commissioned by the International Film Festival Rotterdam and presented in the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen. Featuring a spectacular glass exterior, the Depot was opened in November 2021 and is located next to the Museum Boijmans. The building is unique in that while it houses the museum\u2019s collection, it is also open to the public and offers visitors a look at the process of restoring artworks. McQueen\u2019s installation was shown in a bare concrete space used for the first time for this exhibition.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a9\ufe0e Steve McQueen. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery. A Commission for International Film Festival Rotterdam 2022. Photo: \u00a9️Studio Hans Wilschut<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A large screen installed in the center of the room is split into two parts, with slightly different but synchronized footage juxtaposed on its left and right sides. The images are divided into two materials, one showing video borrowed from NASA of a magma-like blazing sun, the other a modified excerpt from Alan Crosland\u2019s 1927 film \u201cThe Jazz Singer,\u201d which McQueen had wanted to use for 20 years. As the two appear repeatedly and alternately, McQueen\u2019s voice-over narration takes over. The story he tells is an actual experience of his father\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Here is a rough summary of what McQueen\u2019s father told his son just before he died.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my dad was working on a farm in Florida in the fifties, he went to a local bar with some colleagues. They were told, \u2018We don\u2019t serve niggers,\u2019 and one of my dad\u2019s co-workers<\/span> smashed a glass. They ran out of the bar, but their pursuers shot at them. My dad had a brush with death, having to hide in a ditch until the next morning. He never saw his colleagues again. Why did he tell me this story now? Why did he wait until he was on his deathbed?\u201d<\/p>\n

McQueen continues, repeating the phrases like an incantation. \u201cAs he told me the story, he said. He said. Hold me tight. Hold me tight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The words grow in intensity with each repetition, echoing in the mind and overlapping with the other narrative being told\u2014that of \u201cThe Jazz Singer,\u201d which is also a father-and-son story.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a9\ufe0e Steve McQueen. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery. A Commission for International Film Festival Rotterdam 2022. Footage from The Jazz Singer courtesy Warner Bros. Picture Photo: \u00a9️Studio Hans Wilschut<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The movie\u2019s Jewish protagonist, played by Al Jolson, dreams of becoming a jazz singer, but his father wants him to carry on the family tradition and become a cantor at the synagogue. A conflict between father and son, followed by an embrace. At this moment, two different worlds intersect: the Jewish and (through the narration) the Black communities.<\/p>\n

McQueen further inverts, rewinds, and replays the film, establishing an alienating effect.<\/p>\n

Most symbolic is the scene in which Jolson applies his makeup. As he paints his face black with greasepaint, the sequence plays on both the left and right screens, one showing a positive image, the other a negative, so that the black and white faces appear side by side. The act of applying the paint is looped over and over, with the face repeatedly turning black, then white again. At times, Jolson\u2019s head disappears, blending into the black background, as if he were invisible. By erasing the protagonist\u2019s identity, the footage shakes the beliefs embedded deep in the viewer\u2019s psyche.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a9\ufe0e Steve McQueen. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery. A Commission for International Film Festival Rotterdam 2022. Footage from The Jazz Singer courtesy Warner Bros. Picture Photo: \u00a9️Studio Hans Wilschut<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is how McQueen describes his motivations for creating the artwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think people\u2019s discriminatory attitudes have changed much compared to the past. It\u2019s just that they\u2019re less visible now. Many things in our culture come from traditions that are steeped in discrimination and prejudice. For example, Mickey Mouse was originally inspired by a Black minstrel. Even these now popular characters contain subconscious traces of discriminatory attitudes and caricatures perpetrated by white people. \u2018Sunshine State\u2019 is about such white perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jolson\u2019s face is again replaced by the footage of the blazing, burning sun. Perhaps this is a symbol of McQueen\u2019s own anger. As if in prayer, he murmurs, \u201cshine on me, shine on me, shine on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon seeing the finished work, McQueen says it had an unanticipated effect on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard to hear my own voice telling the story. But for the first time, I became aware of what I had unwittingly inherited from my father. I realized that it was both painful and gratifying at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prejudices reside in our casual, everyday gaze. By presenting an emotional personal experience, McQueen reminds us of our unconscious guilt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Translated by Ilmari Saarinen<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve McQueen giving a talk at International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) 2023. \u00a9Kuriko Sato   A cry fo […]","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":7694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[73],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7692"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7692"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7839,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7692\/revisions\/7839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}