In the 1970s, British visual artist Anthony McCall (b. 1946) pioneered a new experimental approach to cinema. His seminal work, Line Describing a Cone (1973), radically shifted focus away from the screen and towards the projector or – more specifically – the light. Ethereal beams filled the space, appearing almost tangible. People wanted to reach out and touch them. McCall offers a summary of this method: “If you want to make a film that’s really a film, and not anything else, you need to discard the image.”
However, towards the end of the 1970s, McCall withdrew from making art and did not return to his career until the dawn of the new millennium. Like many, he was inspired by the artistic potential that emerging technologies promised. Now, his practice has expanded into the “digital realm” and he is making use of haze machines and cutting-edge projectors to further enrich the immersive experience for audiences. In recent years, we’ve grown accustomed to light installations – with spellbinding projects from Olafur Eliasson, teamLab and Marshmallow Laser Feast – which makes this the opportune moment for a comeback.
This year, McCall is taking the art world by storm. The Guggenheim Bilbao provides the setting for a show titled Split Second, coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the museum’s moving-image programme. In the UK, Tate Modern hosts Solid Light. This long-awaited retrospective traces his output between 1972 and 2018 and invites visitors into an immersive space where interaction is the key to fully appreciating the artwork on display. This year, McCall has presented a triumphant season of shows on the world stage.
Tate Modern, Anthony McCall: Solid Light | Until 27 April
Words: Diana Bestwish Tetteh
Image Credits:
- Anthony McCall You and I, Horizontal 2005 Installation view, Institut d’Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne, France, 2006. © Anthony McCall. Photo: Blaise Adilon.
- Anthony McCall, Line Describing a Cone, 1973 during the twenty-fourth minute. Installation view, “Into the Light: the Projected Image in American Art 1964-1977”, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2001. © Anthony McCall. Courtesy of the artist, Sprüth Magers, and Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles. Photograph by Hank Graber.
