The Cinema of Steve McQueen

A study of space and story.

Malachi Kirby in “Mangrove”

I first encountered Steve McQueen’s work at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. The piece on exhibition was a video installation from 2001, “Girls, Tricky.” Cloistered in a soundproof room, bass booming, on a 14-minute loop, a suffocating camera pushes over the trip-hop musician Tricky’s shoulder as he growls lyrics into a microphone for a demo recording of his song…