Steve McQueen: the art of seeing – in pictures

Installation view of Bear (1993), in which McQueen wrestles another man naked Photograph: Tom Bisig, courtesy the Artist / Marian Goodman Gallery, New York / Paris and Thomas Dane Gallery, London

Charlotte (2004) shows McQueen poking and prodding Charlotte Rampling in the eye in a disturbingly intimate, intrusive manner Photograph: Tom Bisig, courtesy the artist/Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation

Video still from Deadpan (1997) – here, a house falls down around McQueen, leaving him standing and blinking in a heap of dust
Photograph: Steve McQueen

Video still from Exodus (1992/97) – a short super 8 work that makes a a study of difference and exile, showing two men traipsing through the streets of east London carrying plants they picked up at Columbia Road market Photograph: Courtesy the artist/Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris, and Thomas Dane Gallery, London

Still from Five Easy Pieces (1995). McQueen never lets you forget that he knows you, the voyeuristic viewer, are there. In this film, he urinates and spits at the camera Photograph: Courtesy the artist/Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris, and Thomas Dane Gallery, London

Still from Giardini (2009), McQueen's work for the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, shows a world of overlooked everyday objects, as well as men cruising and kissing in Venice after dark. It stopped many biennale-goers in their tracks Photograph: Courtesy the artist/Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation

In Girls, Tricky (2001), the waft of cannabis smoke and claustrophobic close-ups of Tricky recording make you feel as if you are inside McQueen’s film as you watch it Photograph: Courtesy the artist/Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation

Video still from Carib's Leap (2002) Photograph: Courtesy the artist/Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation

Installation view of Static (2009), a discombobulating film that begins with the juddering din of a helicopter circling the Statue of Liberty, before plunging you into silence, which plays with your senses, leaving the illusion that the focus is clearer and the statue more present as the noise fades away Photograph: Georgios Kefalas/EPA

One of 116 slides from McQueen's Once Upon a Time series (2002), based on a set of images NASA sent to space in the 1970s to give a visual record of life on Earth in case aliens happened upon their spacecraft Photograph: Steve McQueen