Going to Iraq was a frustrating business from the start for Steve McQueen. The artist was flown to Basra and then not allowed to go anywhere. "I knew I'd be embedded with the troops, but I didn't imagine that meant I'd virtually have to stay in bed. It was ridiculous. We went to see some schools the army was rebuilding. I could talk to the guys but that was it." McQueen was told that if he wandered off on his own, he'd get no support. "It was too hostile an environment. Obviously for the military you are just a token artist. You're in the way."
He was in Iraq for six days as the UK's official war artist, not nearly enough time to get acclimatised, or to begin to know what to do. The plan was that he would present work the following year. The war escalated, and McQueen still had no project, no film, no plans. The US military was approached to see if McQueen could visit Iraq again with them. The plan fell through. "Obviously, it was going to be impossible to make a film. I was living and breathing the fact that I didn't know what to do every day.
"I was thinking of something else, relaxed, sticking a stamp on my tax return in Amsterdam. The stamp had a picture of Vincent van Gogh on it. And then it hit me - a stamp has a beautiful scale, the proportions are right, the image, it is recognisable, and then it goes out into the world, who knows where. Perfect. Wonderful."
The result was For Queen and Country; unveiled in the Great Hall at Central Library, Manchester, it's a co-commission by Manchester International Festival and the Imperial War Museum. McQueen has used a large oak cabinet with sliding vertical drawers to present 98 sheets of postage stamps. Each sheet depicts a different member of the armed services who has died in the conflict, and each sheet tells us who is depicted, and when they died. The sheets are presented in the chronological order of the deaths. "Every time you pull out a sheet of stamps, there is something in the physical contact and intimacy you have with each sheet of images, and the time it takes to look at them, before replacing them and moving on. But the real point is to have the stamps made available for use."
The Royal Mail's director, Allan Leighton, has turned down a request by McQueen to have the work turned into real commemorative stamps. McQueen mixes exasperation with an acknowledgement of the absurd humour of dealing with officialdom.
"The Ministry of Defence were polite about the idea of the stamps. I gave the MoD my idea, and this man asked me, why couldn't I do a landscape? I said, 'Are you telling me you are ashamed of these people? A landscape? Hello?'
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