Caribs' Leap/Western Deep

British artist Steve McQueen’s projected video and film installations are rich in cinematic tradition and compelling in content. His earliest works—black-and-white silent films—are indebted to 1960s structural filmmaking, wherein the mechanics of shooting and projection become essential components of the film’s subject. His more recent work explores the relation between the medium and the spectator. At once confrontational and seductive, these colossally scaled works transform a purely visual experience into a visceral event. Presented as a single installation, Caribs’ Leap and Western Deep are linked by the theme of descent. The dual-screen projection Caribs’ Leap juxtaposes luminous scenes of the beachfront on the island of Grenada—the birthplace of McQueen’s parents—with irregular images of tiny figures falling through a vast sky. The latter pay homage to the island’s indigenous Caribs, who in 1651 leapt to their death rather than surrender to the invading French. In Western Deep, the viewer takes a nightmarish journey into the hot, noisy depths of a South African goldmine. Presented and considered together, these two films suggestively liken modern mining conditions to a historical act of genocide.