Welcome A beautiful performanceObserver highlights a recently opened museum exhibition in a museum not in New York City, and places we know and like have attracted a lot of attention.
The output of artist Steve McQueen (born 1969) is so diverse that it doesn’t need to be throughout his work, and I’m not sure it does exist. But when I think of his work, I remember that all his time seemed to draw my attention directly into the position he wanted. Still (2009) takes the audience to a helicopter around the Statue of Liberty, showing you every feature of it so that you have to see it as a sculpture, which we don’t tend to do. See shame (2011) In the theater, I remember looking at the corners of Carey Mulligan’s eyes, like tears, wondering how he did it.
One of his latest products, bass (2024), has proved his purest control of what he thinks of me. The work is both simpler and more complex than anything involving a helicopter or an A-lister, which fills the lights of the entire space with lights and tones, while the original fraction is filled with subtle bass. The work’s technical rave is far less than what you might imagine from the image, “appearing with intergenerational musicians from the black diaspora under McQueen’s direction, along with the famous bassist Marcus Miller, who brought several other well-known musicians: Meshell ndegeocello and aston barrett barrett jr ng ng ng kon ng a ng. According to news materials, traditional West African string instruments) and Laura-Simone Martin (on the upright sound bass).
Despite living in New York City, I missed the job when I debuted at Dia Beacon because it made more sense to me, grab it in Basel, and it was a year. In the Beacon, it is located in the sprawling basement of that former factory. In Schaulager, the work was not included on the first floor, utilizing over 1,000 LED tubes, temporarily installed in the slight cruel interior of the space designed by Herzog & de Meuron. These lights move cleverly between almost every color of the visible spectrum, with the breath of music, flowing so much that you hardly notice from crimson to cyan.
McQueen said he seeks “ocean frequency” to make up the picture, so saying you feel like you’re swimming underwater isn’t primitive. Instead, I would say you feel like you are walking around underwater, which is very strange. I haven’t encountered lighthouse iterations, but the effect of submersion in Switzerland must be strong because it has multiple layers. You feel like you are on the seabed and there is a league above it. The light doesn’t have this way when you look deep inside the scuba gear, but you can still feel the current, which is reproduced by the synchronization between the music and all the LEDs while changing the color.
If not so soothing, this coordination perfection is almost enough to make you paranoid. This unexpected dedication from McQueen shows that he is still challenging himself and is still looking for new ways to get into our minds.
Steve McQueen’s bass As of November 16, 2025, at the Laurenz Foundation in Schaulager Basel.
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