Ashes

Steve McQueen

2002–15

Two-channel video transferred from 8mm and 16mm film (color, sound; 20:31 minutes), two-sided screen, and posters

Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

Since the late 90s, Steve McQueen’s (born 1969 in London) moving-image works have developed from his iconic silent videos to powerful sound-driven works. In his films, he establishes exquisite, visceral relationships between moving bodies and the architectural spaces that surround or confine them—relationships that are complicated by the presence of viewers in gallery spaces. Questions of politics, race, and societal traumas and conventions haunt his taut structural scenarios. A standout in the 2015 Venice Biennale, Ashes presents footage of a handsome, young, carefree fisherman named Ashes balancing playfully on a pitching boat on