The Oscar-winning British artist and director offers us, in three exhibitions in New York and Switzerland, a sensory experience combining sound, color and light, coupled with an exploration of the narratives of the African diaspora.
Steve McQueen is one of those protean artists. The 56-year-old British filmmaker is primarily known for his socially conscious, formally inventive, and politically astute feature films, such as Hunger, 12 Years a Slave, Small Ax or more recently Flash.
For over thirty years, this graduate of Chelsea College of Art and Design and Goldsmiths, London, has been exploring the potential of cinema—as well as video, installation, and photography—as material, documentary tool, and means of storytelling. His themes continually delve into questions of identity, the history and impact of slavery, power structures, and racial politics.
Today, the artist, who lives between Amsterdam and London, is exhibiting his new work, divided into two parts, in three cultural institutions. First, in the Dia Beacon and Dia Chelsea galleries of the Dia Art Foundation in New York, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary; then, it will be installed in the spaces of the Schaulager Museum in Switzerland, which had already presented more than 20 of his cinematic works in 2013.
From reflection to emotions
The installation at the Dia Beacon, entitled bassThe installation consists of an environment composed of structural elements that play between sound and light. The spatial artwork comprises 60 light boxes, installed on the ceiling, which emit a changing spectrum of colored lights, and three stacks of speakers that diffuse low-frequency sounds. Simultaneously, the light changes color and floods the space, while the sound composition reverberates across all surfaces.
The idea for this work takes as its starting point the history of jazz, structural film and the Middle Passage, this crossing of the Atlantic suffered by Africans, abducted and forcibly taken to the Americas to be enslaved.
Steve McQueen collaborated with bassist Marcus Miller, who assembled a group of Afro-diasporic musicians. The recorded score thus responds to the changing light, the resonance of the space, and the encounter of the two. "Created with acoustic and electric bass instruments, including the Malian n'goni bass, the composition reflects the hybrid musical idioms resulting from the transatlantic slave trade between West Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean.", explains curator Donna De Salvo, curator of the Dia Beacon.
This sensory experience draws on Steve McQueen’s ongoing formal research into sound, light and color, while embracing abstraction as a “method of conveying the unspeakable”. "I want to place the audience in a situation where everyone becomes extremely sensitive to themselves, their body, and their breathing.", he emphasizes.
Stories of the African diaspora
In the Dia Chelsea space, the filmmaker brings together three works that explore narratives of the African diaspora across two decades of his career. The exhibition focuses on Sunshine State (2022), a two-channel, double-sided video projection that draws on a moment in his father's life, examining notions of identity and racial stereotypes.
It also presents Exodus (1992-1997), one of his early films, centered on two West Indians in the streets of London, and Bounty (2024), a photographic series on flowers found in Granada, the hometown of her parents.
This exhibition, originally commissioned by the Rotterdam International Film Festival, marks Steve McQueen's debut on the East Coast of the United States, highlighting his connection with Florida.
Together, these two parts, which visitors can discover in June at the Schaulager in Switzerland, intertwine his reflections on his ancestry and the Middle Passage, his formal studies of sound and light, the personal and the political. A comprehensive work, shared across multiple spaces, media, and technologies.
"Steve McQueen": bass
Dia Beacon
3 Beekman Street, Beacon, New York (USA)
Until 26 May 2025
diaart.org
“Steve McQueen”
Dia Chelsea
537 West 22nd Street, New York (United States)
Until July 19, 2025
diaart.org
“Steve McQueen”
Schaulager
Ruchfeldstrasse 19, Münchenstein (Switzerland)
From June 2025
schaulager.org
