© Photo: James Stopforth.

From 21 March to 30 August 2026, De Pont Museum will present ATLAS, the first solo exhibition in the Netherlands by British artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen. The exhibition features the world premiere of his new work Atlas (2026) and brings together three other recent works.

‘Steve McQueen is one of the best artists we have, whatever medium he chooses. He never gives you what you expect, and whatever you think you know about him, he always takes you somewhere else.’
– Adrian Searle, The Guardian, May 2024

The exhibition presents the new work Atlas (2026) – created for the exhibition– and the museum’s recent acquisition, Sunshine State (2022). Alongside the sound work Untitled (2025) and the photo series Bounty (2024), these works form a powerful ensemble in which McQueen explores the boundaries of space, memory, imagination and time.

With ATLAS, De Pont Museum presents an artist at the height of his powers: sharp in observation, deeply human in resonance. The four works unfold as a journey from the personal to the cosmic – from the intimate to the collective and from physical presence to the immensity of the universe. The exhibition reveals McQueen as both filmmaker and thinker, intertwining art, film and lived reality.

‘During the pandemic lockdown of 2021, Steve McQueen visited De Pont Museum with his family. In the silence of the former wool-spinning mill, the idea for an exhibition was born. Since then, a collaboration has grown that now culminates in the presentation of new and recent works. The dialogue between artist and museum has resulted in the acquisition of his deeply personal masterpiece Sunshine State – without doubt one of our most important acquisitions in recent years.’
– Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen, Director of De Pont Museum

Steve McQueen, Sunshine State, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy, 31 March–31 July 2022. © Steve McQueen. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery, Collection De Pont Museum, Tilburg NL. Photo Agostino Osio/Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. A Commission for International Film Festival Rotterdam 2022. Footage from The Jazz Singer courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.

In the spatial, multi-channel video installation Sunshine State (2022), McQueen interweaves film history with a personal family narrative. The work refers to the story of his father, who left the Caribbean island of Grenada for Florida in the 1950s to work as a seasonal labourer in the orange harvest. Close-ups of a burning sun alternate with excerpts from The Jazz Singer (1927), the first sound film in which lead actor Al Jolson appears in blackface. McQueen radically reworks this historical material: images are slowed down, sped up, inverted and reversed, literally exchanging black and white.

As McQueen retells his father’s story, omissions, silences and gaps emerge, making trauma and memory palpable. The two unsynchronised projections create a disruptive experience in which personal history and collective imagery collide.

Alongside the recent sound work Untitled (2025), visitors can view Bounty (2024), a 47-part colour photo series capturing flowers and plants on Grenada as they move through varying states of blossoming and decline. Beneath their exuberant beauty lies a reflection on colonial history, appropriation and resilience. The title evokes both abundance and plunder: bounty as wealth, and as spoils.

The new work Atlas (2026), commissioned by De Pont Museum, opens another perspective: that of the cosmos. Here McQueen uses astronomical data from the European Space Agency (ESA) Gaia mission for the first time. Working with davidkremers, Julian Humml and Alejandro Stefan Zavala, he transforms a vast body of telescope data into a mesmerising visual experience. Autonomous machine learning models translate scientific observations into a journey through space – as empirically grounded as it is poetic.

Steve McQueen on Atlas:
‘When I started Atlas, I wasn’t thinking about our solar system or data, but about perspective – how we look at the world, and how that view determines who we are. Working with De Pont Museum over the last 5 years, I found a space that makes that kind of viewing possible: quiet, focused, without distraction.’

The exhibition is curated by Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen and Maria Schnyder, in close collaboration with the artist.

Steve McQueen, Bounty 2,  2024 archival inkjet print, 53.5 x 41.9 cm. © Steve McQueen. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery and Marian Goodman Gallery.

Steve McQueen (London, 1969) is one of the most influential artists and filmmakers of his generation. His oeuvre – from radical video works to Oscar-winning feature films – explores themes of power, injustice, memory and physical vulnerability. With an exceptional sense of rhythm and form, McQueen shows how personal stories intertwine with historical structures.

McQueen studied at Goldsmiths, University of London, and first gained international recognition in the 1990s with short, experimental films including Bear (1993), Deadpan (1997) and Western Deep (2002). These intense works earned him the Turner Prize in 1999. From 2008 onwards, he expanded his practice to cinema: Hunger (2008) won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes; Shame (2011) explored addiction and isolation; and 12 Years a Slave (2013) – winner of the Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA for Best Film – is widely considered a contemporary masterpiece.

He went on to direct Widows (2018), Blitz (2024) and the television series Small Axe (2020), a landmark portrait of the West Indian community in London. In later art projects, including Year 3 (2019), Sunshine State (2022) (originally commissioned by the International Film Festival Rotterdam), Grenfell (2023) and Bass (2024), McQueen continues to explore collective memory and the political power of images. His work has been shown at documenta (1997, 2002), in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2009), and in museums such as Tate Modern, London; Schaulager, Basel; and Dia Beacon, New York. He received the Turner Prize in 1999 and the Rolf Schock Prize in 2024. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2001, promoted to Commander in 2011, and was knighted in 2020. McQueen is the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University for the 2025-2026 academic year, delivering a series of six lectures. He lives and works in London and Amsterdam.

Nanneke Pieters
pressoffice@depont.nl 
+31624270285

Beau Swierstra
pressoffice@depont.nl 

Steve McQueen – Atlas
De Pont Museum, Tilburg, The Netherlands
21 March –  30 August 2026
www.depont.nl