Deadpan is a four-minute installation film in which McQueen re-stages a death-defying Buster Keaton stunt. The side of a house is filmed toppling again and again from all angles onto an unflinching McQueen, who survives thanks to a carefully positioned window.
For the first new installation since his major commission Year 3 at Tate Britain in 2019, and following a pivotal retrospective at Tate Modern in 2020, the celebrated filmmaker and visual artist will infuse the expansive, central space of Rotterdam’s distinctive Kunsthal with sound and image.
We see footage of Ashes, a young Grenadian man sitting on the prow of a fishing boat at sea, at times smiling and grinning at the Super 8 camera filming him. The story on the soundtrack is told by Ashes' friends and was recorded by director Steve McQueen after he returned to the island in 2010 and found out that the young man had been murdered after he discovered a stash of drugs on a beach.
Director Steve McQueen films Trip-Hop artist Tricky recording 'Girls' In the tight confines of a recording booth, the musician Adrian Thomas, also known as Tricky, repeatedly performs the song 'girls' from his album Blowback (2001). The intimate and highly charged atmosphere of the studio is complemented by lyrics that explore the relationships between girls, boys and absent fathers.