This weekend I spent a day at Dia Beacon, a modern art museum in the Hudson Valley most noted for its collection of post-modern exhibits. There is currently an immersive temporary, site specific work that has simply captivated my mind.

Steve McQueen is most known for his directing chops – the exploration of the camera’s limits, the boundaries of long, moving flowing shots. He tests the audience as much as he probably tests his editors and actors.

The basement level of Dia Beacon has become touched with McQueen’s keen eye and ear. This is a co-comission by Dia Art Foundation and Laruenz Foundation, and Schaulager Basel.

Bass resonates with something so primal as you descend to the cement basement of the repurposed factor. An eerie glow captures your eyes at the top of the stairwell, leaving only a hint of what lies beneath. Each step down, the sound swells around your ankles, calves, knees till you are submerged into the exhibit. The recording of several bass artists melds into one, an ever present, if not ominous sound bath.

There are 60 ceiling mounted lightboxes and three columns of speakers. Does it sound straight-forward? Ah, but therein lies the art.

Bass isn’t heard as much as it is felt. And in a cavernous space like this, the sensation of sound morphs you into response. Slow changing, the LED lights smoothly shift through the color spectrum. Vivid hues not subject to the ordinary, magnify the wonder of traversing the entirety of the space. Sit at one end of the room and just watch people walk down a row of columns. Its long enough to walk that the mind loses track of how much time should pass for that distance. You begin to realize that in losing your shadow, you lose a piece of your own nature.

In short, it can make one feel uneasy as time, light and perception shift.

Bass has a concise and well written exhibition catalogue crafted by Donna De Salvo with Emily Markert. It provides further context to the hypnotizing bass instrumentalists. I will do my best to keep to the Checklist on the back of the catalogue, but will provide proper notation of De Salvo and Markert’s expert work

… McQueen worked with the renowned bassist Marcus Miller to assemble an intergenerational group of expert Afro-diasportic musicians.

The performers include: Laura-Simone Martin, upright bass; Mamadou Kouyaté, bass ngoni; Miller, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Aston Barret Jr on electric bass.

Improvising off each other, the space and lights, their instruments melt and meld into the cement floors and walls themselves. They invoke the memory of the Middle Passage, offering patrons to shed their own humanity and surrender. You are meant to entirely submit to another dimension, whatever that triggers within your subconscious.

Some patrons were content to walk through the space, feel the transformation of the lights as they do so. However, there were other variants that absorbed the hypnosis differently. One woman sat on the ground, leaning against a column. Perhaps not what is suggested, however I understand the allure of being in the middle of the room and feeling the echos from the floor and architecture. You have to look along the perimeter to find seating, but it is worth the search to capture the feeling of bass rock against the walls.

Transitioning out of the space is awkward at first, depending where in the color cycle you are leaving. There are cool lights in the stairwells that can be jarring when stepping out of a deep red. I recommend blinking your eyes as you acclimate. Stepping out of a weird, shadow-less dimension the natural daylight is a soft embrace, a home to which you finally return.

The other exhibits stimulate the mind with inter-dimensional rules and discord. From Richard Serra’s coiled Ellipses sculptures to Senga Nengudi’s several finely folded and dyed Water Compositions, there is a type of mindful hyperawareness that my brain latched into. I also highly suggest Larry Bell’s glass work and Felix Gonzalez-Torres exhibitions. Both approach the open space with translucent, buoyant pieces that pry an unrecognized sense of nostalgia. In the wide expanse, their large proportions invite a child-like curiosity.

Modern and post-modern art is meant to be reacted towards. Eliciting emotions is the point, which Steve McQueen has long mastered. If you are in the Hudson Valley before May 26th, I recommend visiting Dia for it’s collection, and to get a chance to immerse yourself into McQueen’s work.

Learn more about the museum and it’s collection here.

Take care of yourself friends!