Steve McQueen's "Bass" Installation at Dia Beacon
Beacon, NY - Acclaimed artist Steve McQueen's latest work, "Bass," is on display at the Dia Art Foundation in Beacon, New York. Featuring an arrangement of three stacks of speakers and a grid of 60 LED light boxes in a concrete basement, the installation creates a mesmerizing audio-visual experience. The LED lights, positioned flush with the ceiling, cycle through a spectrum of colors, providing the sole illumination in the dim, echoing space.
Legendary bass player Marcus Miller and a group of musicians, including Aston Barrett Jr., Mamadou Kouyaté, Laura-Simone Martin, and Meshell Ndegeocello, improvised a musical performance under McQueen's direction. This performance, recorded over two days, forms the core of the installation, with minimal edits to the three-hour recording. McQueen's work draws from West African musical idioms, exploring the heritage and evolution of these sounds across the Atlantic and into the Americas and Caribbean.
The installation at Dia Beacon, a converted Nabisco box factory, will be on display until April 14, 2025, after which it will move to the Laurenz Foundation’s Schaulager in Basel, Switzerland.