The thing about war nowadays is that it seems so abstract. Everybody is excited about current Oscar-awarded Best Film The Hurt Locker, BBC footage of combat operations on the evening news might just look like your boyfriend playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – or the other way around, nothing new to that. Maybe it would get a bit more real if you had little photos of dead soldiers in your hand, would look at them really closely, then lick the back of it and press it onto an envelope – so envisioned by British artist Steve McQueen:
Queen and Country, a provocative art project by Iraq war artist and Turner prize-winner Steve McQueen reaches its final stage in London this weekend. Featuring 160 postage stamp-size portraits of UK soldiers killed in Iraq, the exhibition is at the forefront of McQueen’s campaign to have Royal Mail adopt them.
Queen and Country is at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from 20 March to 18 July 2010
