Following his appointment as official war artist by the Imperial War museum in 2006, former Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen was sent to Iraq for six days to record his experiences. The project which developed as a result, currently on show at the National Portrait Gallery, is radically different in approach from the crass commemorative paintings which have traditionally depicted war. The installation, a large oak cabinet resembling a wooden coffin, with 155 vertical draws each containing the face of a British serviceman or woman printed alongside the Queen on a postage stamp, is a harrowing tribute to those who have died whilst in the service of ‘Queen and Country’.

In its initial stages the project represented 98 young people, but has grown with time and now represents 136 of the 156 soldiers who have died. The blank spaces have slowly filled, and those which remain empty stand as evocative symbols of those yet to die. The process of opening and closing these drawers mimics the way in which we encounter these images of the dead on a daily basis, images which, once splashed on the middle pages of the newspaper, fall in and out of consciousness.

McQueen’s initial idea for the project was to have the piece made into postage stamps to be distributed in the public realm. Yet Royal Mail refused to issue the stamps despite a petition established by the Art Fund. What makes McQueen’s project so uncanny and thus powerful is the way in which it straddles a divide between commemorating the heroism of soldiers and providing subtle political commentary about the wastefulness of war. Rather than presenting an overtly anti-war piece (which would be typical of McQueen’s highly politicised work), the artist makes the questions surrounding war all the more poignant through the work’s stark neutrality, which both celebrates and condemns at the same time.

Until Jul 18

REBECCA WRIGHT