Dia Talks

A Conversation with Steve McQueen and Paul Gilroy

Friday, April 4, 2025, 7 pm, Offsite

Add to calendar Event detailsFriday, April 4, 20257 pm CUNY Graduate CenterProshansky Auditorium365 5th AvenueNew York, New York Free. Registration required; register for the in-person event here, and the livestream here. Dia Art Foundation and CUNY Graduate Center co-present a conversation with artist Steve McQueen and scholar Paul Gilroy to mark two concurrent exhibitions of McQueen’s work at Dia Beacon and Dia Chelsea. Over many years, McQueen and Gilroy have sustained an ongoing dialogue about the political and cultural dimensions of what Gilroy terms the Black Atlantic, particularly as it relates to visual art and music, as well as other contemporary sociopolitical subjects. Gilroy has also written extensively on and in response to McQueen’s work, including most recently for the catalog Steve McQueen: Bass, published in conjunction with McQueen’s co-commission for Dia Beacon, by Dia and Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager Basel, and documenting the immersive light-and-sound installation. In this conversation, they will focus on their shared interest in music, taking the complex musical idioms associated with Bass (2024) and the Black Atlantic as points of departure. Paul Gilroy is one of the foremost theorists of race and racism working and teaching in the world today. Working across disciplines, including British and American literature, African American studies, Black British studies, transatlantic history, and critical race theory, he has transformed the canon of political and cultural history, making us aware of how the African diaspora—largely spurred into motion by racial slavery—was an extra-national, sociopolitical, and cultural phenomenon that challenged essentialist conceptions of country, community, and identity, and was constitutive of modernity. He is an emeritus professor of humanities and was the founding director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation at University College London. Gilroy is the author of influential publications such as The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993), Against Race: Imagining Political Culture beyond the Color Line (2000), Postcolonial Melancholia (2005), and Darker Than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture (2010), as well as numerous articles and essays. He has written about the work of Steve McQueen in several essays, including “Time and Terror: Widdershins in the Torrid Zone” in Steve McQueen: Sunshine State (2022); “Never Again Grenfell,” published in conjunction with the exhibition Steve McQueen: Grenfell at Serpentine Galleries, London (2023); and “For a Low-End Theory of Black Atlantic Cymatics” in Steve McQueen: Bass (2024). Gilroy is the recipient of the 2019 Holberg Prize, given to a person who has made outstanding contributions to research in the arts, humanities, social science, law, or theology. Gilroy lives in London. Steve McQueen was born in London in 1969. Surveys of his work have been held at the Art Institute of Chicago and Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager Basel (2012–13); Tate Modern, London (2020); and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2022). Recent solo presentations include those at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); the Art Institute of Chicago (2017); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2017); Pérez Art Museum, Miami (2017); Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2017); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2017–18); Tate Britain, London (2019–21); and Serpentine Gallery, London (2023). McQueen has participated in Documenta X (1997) and XI (2002), as well as the Venice Biennale (2003, 2007, 2013, and 2015), representing Great Britain in 2009. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Turner Prize (1999); W. E. B. DuBois Medal, Harvard University (2014); and Johannes Vermeer Award (2016). He was declared Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2002, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2011, and Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order in 2020. McQueen directed the feature films Hunger (2008), Shame (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2014), and Widows (2018); as well as the series Small Axe (2020), an anthology of five films shown on the BBC and Amazon; and Uprising (2021), a three-part documentary series for the BBC. His documentary Occupied City (2023) is based on the book Atlas van een bezette stad: Amsterdam 1940–1945 (Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940–1945, 2019) by Bianca Stigter. McQueen won the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Hunger in 2008 and an Oscar for Best Motion Picture for 12 Years a Slave in 2014. McQueen lives in Amsterdam and London.

Steve McQueen, Bass, 2024. Installation view, Dia Beacon, New York, 2024–25. © Steve McQueen. Photo: Bill Jacobson Studio, New York

Event details
Friday, April 4, 2025
7 pm

CUNY Graduate Center
Proshansky Auditorium
365 5th Avenue
New York, New York

Free. Registration required; register for the in-person event here, and the livestream here.

Dia Art Foundation and CUNY Graduate Center co-present a conversation with artist Steve McQueen and scholar Paul Gilroy to mark two concurrent exhibitions of McQueen’s work at Dia Beacon and Dia Chelsea. Over many years, McQueen and Gilroy have sustained an ongoing dialogue about the political and cultural dimensions of what Gilroy terms the Black Atlantic, particularly as it relates to visual art and music, as well as other contemporary sociopolitical subjects. Gilroy has also written extensively on and in response to McQueen’s work, including most recently for the catalog Steve McQueen: Bass, published in conjunction with McQueen’s co-commission for Dia Beacon, by Dia and Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager Basel, and documenting the immersive light-and-sound installation. In this conversation, they will focus on their shared interest in music, taking the complex musical idioms associated with Bass (2024) and the Black Atlantic as points of departure.

Paul Gilroy is one of the foremost theorists of race and racism working and teaching in the world today. Working across disciplines, including British and American literature, African American studies, Black British studies, transatlantic history, and critical race theory, he has transformed the canon of political and cultural history, making us aware of how the African diaspora—largely spurred into motion by racial slavery—was an extra-national, sociopolitical, and cultural phenomenon that challenged essentialist conceptions of country, community, and identity, and was constitutive of modernity. He is an emeritus professor of humanities and was the founding director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation at University College London. Gilroy is the author of influential publications such as The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993), Against Race: Imagining Political Culture beyond the Color Line (2000), Postcolonial Melancholia (2005), and Darker Than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture (2010), as well as numerous articles and essays. He has written about the work of Steve McQueen in several essays, including “Time and Terror: Widdershins in the Torrid Zone” in Steve McQueen: Sunshine State (2022); “Never Again Grenfell,” published in conjunction with the exhibition Steve McQueen: Grenfell at Serpentine Galleries, London (2023); and “For a Low-End Theory of Black Atlantic Cymatics” in Steve McQueen: Bass (2024). Gilroy is the recipient of the 2019 Holberg Prize, given to a person who has made outstanding contributions to research in the arts, humanities, social science, law, or theology. Gilroy lives in London.

Steve McQueen was born in London in 1969. Surveys of his work have been held at the Art Institute of Chicago and Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager Basel (2012–13); Tate Modern, London (2020); and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2022). Recent solo presentations include those at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); the Art Institute of Chicago (2017); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2017); Pérez Art Museum, Miami (2017); Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2017); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2017–18); Tate Britain, London (2019–21); and Serpentine Gallery, London (2023). McQueen has participated in Documenta X (1997) and XI (2002), as well as the Venice Biennale (2003, 2007, 2013, and 2015), representing Great Britain in 2009. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Turner Prize (1999); W. E. B. DuBois Medal, Harvard University (2014); and Johannes Vermeer Award (2016). He was declared Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2002, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2011, and Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order in 2020.

McQueen directed the feature films Hunger (2008), Shame (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2014), and Widows (2018); as well as the series Small Axe (2020), an anthology of five films shown on the BBC and Amazon; and Uprising (2021), a three-part documentary series for the BBC. His documentary Occupied City (2023) is based on the book Atlas van een bezette stad: Amsterdam 1940–1945 (Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940–1945, 2019) by Bianca Stigter. McQueen won the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Hunger in 2008 and an Oscar for Best Motion Picture for 12 Years a Slave in 2014.

McQueen lives in Amsterdam and London.