Steve McQueen ‘Blues Before Sunrise’
The Stedelijk Museum is proudly presenting Blues Before Sunrise, a project by artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen that will take place in Amsterdam’s largest public park, Vondelpark.
Based on the song of the same name by Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell, the exhibition replaces the 275 streetlamps of Amsterdam’s most well known urban green space with a subdued blue toned light. McQueen uses illumination to transform the environment, giving rise to a host of new associations. Like sound or music, light changes the atmosphere and alters one’s perception of a place. In this way, Blues Before Sunrise blends the sensory and cinematic.
‘Blues Before Sunrise’ is a step away from McQueen’s recent film work, including his controversial features Hunger (2008) and Shame (2011). However, his gift for exposing the routine as extraordinary continues, with the blue light transforming the green environment into an otherworldly landscape far removed from the experience of the everyday.
This exhibition is part of ‘Temporary Stedelijk 3: Stedelijk @’, a temporary program while the museum is closed for its most ambitious building project in more than a century.
‘Blues Before Sunrise’ opens today and runs until Friday 25 March 2012. Stay tuned for live updates on fluoroDigital from Vondelpark, Amsterdam, tomorrow at 10:00am AEST.
