March 07, 2007
people v landscape
Turner-Prize Winner's True Portrait of War
It is an image of war that the Ministry of Defence never wanted to see published: an intimate family photograph of a British soldier killed in Iraq which, taken with nearly 100 others, forms the official portrait of the conflict by the Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen.
McQueen said it had been completed in the face of two years' opposition from the MoD, which had offered only a limited glimpse of the conflict, refused him access to the families of British casualties and asked why he could not produce "a landscape" portrait instead.
To the astonishment of the 98 bereaved families who have worked on the project with McQueen, the Royal Mail chairman, Allan Leighton has also declined the artist's personal request that the stamps be turned into a real commemorative issue, to mark the lives laid down in the conflict.
Of the 115 families contacted and asked for photographs, 98 wanted to be involved, four did not and 13 did not respond. The result is a piece of art which is both shocking and moving. McQueen is desperate for the Royal Mail to make real stamps out of his replicas. "The idea of bending down to pick up a letter and that those who have died who look out at you seems immensely powerful. It seems we can have stamps to mark winning the Ashes - but not this," he said.
Royal Mail said it was aware of McQueen's approach but had no immediate plans to take it up. "We plan five years in advance," said a spokesman. The MoD had no comment.
story By Ian Herbert | Independent
~Conscientious' friend Colin (who found this story) writes: "The artist Steve Mcqueen made a series of dummy stamps bearing images of dead British soldiers - this was an Imperial War Museum commission from London. They objected to this big time and suggested he do landscapes (as Paul Seawright had done from Afghanistan a few years earlier).
I think it sums up why portraiture has a power landscape lacks and perhaps also the way the MOD object to McQueen's work, but not that of countless photojournalists, is interesting."
>Steve McQueen (artist) at Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McQueen_(artist)
Posted by Stubbornson at March 7, 2007 05:55 PM