Steve McQueen Wins Gucci Group Award for 2008

Steve McQueen is the art world's new King of Cool. The British filmmaker whose recent project Hunger won the prestigious Caméra d'Or award at Cannes, adds another prominent award to his collection: Gucci Group's annual recognition of an international artist who makes a significant contribution to film. And this year's group of nominees -- Julian Schnabel, Isaac Julien and Adam Yauch -- provided staunch competition indeed.

Robert Polet, Gucci's CEO and President, presented the award to McQueen during the 65th Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy. The committee included some of the world's greatest arbiters of style, Italian Vogue's Franco Sozzani, the artist Jeff Koons, actress Isabelle Huppert, Yves Saint Laurent's creative director Stefano Pilati and the artistic director of the Venice Film Festival, Marco Muller.