Anthony McCall

Biography

Since the early 1970s the British-born New York based artist Anthony McCall (b.1946) has been working with projected light. His “solid-light” installations occupy a space between line-drawing, cinema, and sculpture: fundamentally graphic, they are realized through the mediums of film or digital projection and the effect created is that of largescale, three dimensional sculptures composed of shifting membranes of light. Viewing becomes an active process of moving around and through the projected object, exploring it from different points of view.

While the early installations of the 1970s used variations of the circle or straight lines, McCall’s works since 2003 feature digitally animated curves and waves, which operate with an aesthetics of data visualisation. Reminiscent of algorithms, the curves allude to their computer aided creation, yet they are also evocative of organic movements as in the light installations Meeting You Halfway II (2009) and Throes (2011).

His films include key works such as Line Describing a Cone (1973), Long Film for Four Projectors (1974), Doubling Back (2003), and Turning Under (2004).

Occupying a space between cinema, sculpture, and drawing, his work’s historical importance has been recognized in such exhibitions as Into the Light: the Projected Image in American Art 1964-77, Whitney Museum of American Art (2001-02); The Expanded Screen: Actions and Installations of the Sixties and Seventies, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna (2003-04); The Expanded Eye, Kunsthaus Zurich(2006); Beyond Cinema: the Art of Projection, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2006-07); The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Projected Image, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC (2008), On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010-11) and Solid Light, Tate Modern, London (2024-25).

Biography

Born 1946 in St. Paul’s Cray, UK.

Lives and works in New York, USA.

Education

1964 – 1968

Design studies, Ravenbourne-College of Art and Design, London, UK

Grants and Awards

2024
National Academician by the National Academy of Design

2008

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship

1975

Marie-Josi-Prize of the 5th International Experimental Film Competition, Knokke, Belgium (for ‘Line Describing a Cone’)

Selected Solo Exhibitions and Screenings

2024 – 2025

Solid Light, Tate Modern, London, England
Rooms, Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), Lisbon, Portugal

2024

Raised Voices, Sprüth Magers, London, UK

Anthony McCall: Split Second, Guggenheim-Museum Bilbao, Bizkaia, Spain

2023

New Solid Light Works and Early Drawings, Sean Kelly, Los Angeles, USA

2022

Anthony McCall, Guest of Honor, Offscreen, Hôtel de Rothschild, Paris, France

2020

Eyes On: Anthony McCall, Denver Art Museum, USA

2018

Anthony McCall: Solid Light Works, The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK

Anthony McCall. Solid Light Works, Pioneer Works, New York, USA

2017

Anthony McCall. Traveling Wave, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany

Pause: Anthony McCall. Line Describing a Cone (1973), KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany

Anthony McCall, Lismore Castle Arts, Waterford, Ireland

2016

Anthony McCall, Fundació Gaspar Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

2015

Anthony McCall. Light Works, Museum of Old and New Art, Dark Mofo Festival, Tasmania, Australia

Anthony McCall. Notebooks & Duration Drawings, 1972 – 2013, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York

Anthony McCall. Solid Light Works, Museo Cantonale d’Arte, Lugano, Switzerland

Anthony McCall. Face To Face, Trish Clarke Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

2014

Anthony McCall. Solid Light Films 1971-2014, Eye Amsterdam, Netherlands

2013 – 2014

Anthony McCall. Crossing the Elbe, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany

2013

Anthony McCall, Les Abattoirs – Frac Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, France

Anthony McCall, Lokremise St. Gallem Light Show, Hayward Gallery

2012

Anthony McCall. Ends of the Earth. Land Art bis 1974, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany

Anthony McCall. The Complete Cone Films, Tate Modern, The Tanks, London, UK

Anthony McCall. Meeting You Halfway II, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany

Anthony McCall. Five Minutes of Pure Sculpture, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany

Anthony McCall. You and I, Horizontal, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, in context of the event ‘Gegenwarts-Bildung’, Braunschweig, Germany

PROJECTED COLUMN, in the context of ‘London 2012 Cultural Olympiade’, Liverpool Docklands, Liverpool, UK

2011

Anthony McCall. Between You and I, Collège des Bernardins, Paris, France

Anthony McCall. Long Film for Ambient Light, Light Industry / The Artist’s Institute, New York

Anthony McCall. Installations and Works on Paper, Luciana Brito Galeria, São Paulo, Brasil

Anthony McCall. Vertical Works, Ambika P3 University of Westminster, London, UK

2010

Anthony McCall. Drawing with Light, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand

Nu/Now: Anthony McCall, Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Anthony McCall, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York

2009 – 2010

Anthony McCall. Leaving (withTwo-Minute Silence), Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany

2009

Anthony McCall. Breath [The Vertical Works], Hangar Bicocca, Milan, Italy

Anthony McCall. Vertical Works, Estuaire 2009, St Nazaire, France

Anthony McCall, Art Unlimited / Art 40 Basel, Basel, Switzerland

2007 – 2008

Anthony McCall. Elements for a Retrospective, Utzon Center, Aalborg, Denmark

Anthony McCall. You and I, Horizontal III, Galerie Martine Aboucaya, Paris, France

2007

Sean Kelly Gallery, New York

Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Rochechouart, France

Serpentine Gallery, London, UK

2006

Vardy Gallery, University of Sunderland, UK

Anthony McCall, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany

LIA: Lieu d’Images et d’Art, Grenoble, France Peer / Round Chapel, London, UK

Institut d’Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne, France

Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture

2005

Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Galerie Martine Aboucaya, Paris, France

2004

Anthony McCall. Film Installations. Mead Gallery, Warwick Art Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

Anthony McCall. Films de Lumière Solide, Centre Pompidou / La Mayson Rouge, Foundation Antoine de Galbert, Paris, France

Anthony McCall. Doubling Back / Turning Under, Gagosian Gallery, London, UK

Anthony McCall. Long Film for Four Projectors, Tate Britain, London, UK

1976

Musée Nationale d’Art Moderne, Paris, France

Cineprobe, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Neue Galerie, Aachen, Germany

Artists Space, New York

Millennium Film Workshop, New York

1975

Collective for Living Cinema, New York

Galerie St. Petri, Lund, Sweden

Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh

Serpentine Gallery, London, UK

London Film-Makers’ Cooperative, London, UK

1974

Millennium Film Workshop, New York

London Film-Makers’ Cooperative, London, UK

Artists Space, New York The Clocktower, New York

Anthony McCall. Solid Light Films, Collective for Living Cinema and Film Forum, New York

Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK

Selected Group Exhibitions and Screenings

2024

Drawing Biennial 2024, Drawing Room London, London, UK

2022-2023

QAGOMA, Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia

2022

at dawn, Julia Stoschek Foundation, Berlin, Germany

Traverser La Nuit: Works From The Antoine De Galbert Collection, Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), Lisbon, Portugal

2020 – 2021

Deceptive Images—Playing with Painting and Photography, Marta Herford, Museum for Art, Architecture and Design, Herford, Germany

2019

Negativer Raum, Skulptur und Installation im 20./21. Jahrhundert, ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe, Germany

2018

Danser Brut, LAM, Lille, France

2017

GAGARIN the Artists in their Own Words. 2000-2016. The String Traveller, S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium

2016

Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts, American Academy of Art and Letters, New York

About Time: Photography in a Moment of Change, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California

What is Cinema?, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

2015

Light Show, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia

Formes Simples / Simple Shapes, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

Immateriality, SESC Belenzinho, Sao Paulo, Brazil

As the Earth Spins Beneath The Stars, Leal Rios Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal

Theater of the Mind, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Blow-up, Berlin, Germany and Albertina, Vienna, Austria

2014

Solides Fragiles, Mudam, Luxembourg The Event Sculpture, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK

Landscape. The Virtual, The Actual, The Possible?, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California

Extraits er extractions, les Abattoirs, FRAC Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, France

A Paradise Built in Hell, Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany

Formes simples, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France

El Hotel Eléctrico, Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp, Belgium

2013

Uncommon Ground, Land Art in Britain 1966-1979, Southampton City Art Gallery, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; Mead Gallery, University of Warwick; Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK

When Now is Minimal. Die unbekannte Seite der Sammlung Goetz, Neues Museum, Nuremberg, Germany

Tracing the Century, mima, Middelsbrough, UK

2012

Collection’12, Institut d’art contemporain, Frac Rhône Alpes, Villeurbanne, France

Tracing the Century, Tate, Liverpool, UK

open spaces | secret places, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Salzburg, Austria

Ends of the Earth. Land Art bis 1974, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany

Fotografie Total. Werke aus der Sammlung des MMK, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

2011 – 2012

Electric Nights, LAboral, Gijón, Spain

2011

Events in the Environment (screening of Landscape for Fire), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California

Twenty Years of Presence, 1991–2011, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany

CUT, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany

The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image, Fundació La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain

Bild für Bild – Film und zeitgenössische Kunst. Aus der Sammlung des Centre Pompidou, Dortmunder U – Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, Germany

Off the Wall, Fundação Serralves, Porto, Portugal

2010

Light in Darkness, Zero Foundation, Media Harbor, Düsseldorf, Germany

Sites, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Contemplating the Void, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Sensorialités Excentriques, Musée Départemental d’Art Contemporain, Rochechouart, France

Funktionen der Zeichnung, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

I want to see how you see, Haus der Photographie / Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany

2009

Sigmund Freud’s Dora: A Case of Mistaken Identity (screening), Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK

Lunière, Musée Départemental d’Art Contemporain, Rochechouart, France

This World and Nearer Ones, Creative Time: Governors Island, New York

Art Unlimited, Art 40 Basel, Switzerland

2008 – 2009

Seeing Double (with Lothar Baumgarten, Victor Burgin, Larry Sultan / Mike Mandel, Mark Thompson), Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany

Cinema Indeed: Narratives & Projections, Itaú Cultural Institute, São Paulo, Brasil

2008

The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image, Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Notation: Kalkül und Form in den Künsten, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany

Geometry of Motion 1920s/1970s, Museum of Modern Art, New York

2007

Borderline Behaviour: Drawn Towards Animation, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Art Cologne: Special Exhibition, Cologne, Germany

On the Collective for Living Cinema, Orchard, New York

Project, Transform, Erase: Anthony McCall and Imi Knoebel, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California

Lights, Camera, Action: Artists’ Films for the Cinema, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

2006 – 2007

Projections: Beyond Cinematic Space, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany

Held Together with Water, Sammlung Verbund at the MAK, Vienna, Austria

Art 38 Basel / Art/Film, Basel, Switzerland

Number One: Destroy, She Said, Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf, Germany

2006

Experimenta 2006, Fourth Festival of Experimental Cinema in India, Bombay, India

Art Unlimited, Art 37 Basel, Switzerland

The Expanded Eye, Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland

On/Off, 49 Nord 6 Est Frac Lorraine, Metz, France

Sudden Impact, Frac Ile-de-France, Le Plateau, Paris, France

2005 – 2006

Lichtkunst aus Kunstlicht, ZKM / Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe, Germany

2005

The Trouble with Talkies, Double Agents / ADI Space, London, UK

The Continuous Present. Peter Campus & Anthony McCall: Works from the Seventies, Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York

Produced at Eyebeam, Eyebeam, New York

2004

Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Wavelengths Toronto International Film Festival

Expanded Cinema: Film as Spectacle, Event and Performance, Hartware Medien Kunst Verein, Dortmund, Germany

Eyes, Lies & Illusions, Hayward Gallery, London, UK

Avanto Helsinki Media Art Festival, Finland

Kill Your Timid Notion Festival (collaboration with Sachiko M. Dundee Contemporary Arts)

2003 – 2005

X-Screen: The Expanded Screen: Actions and Installations of the Sixties and Seventies, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, Austria

2002

Shoot Shoot Shoot: The First Decade of the London Film-Makers’ Cooperative & British Avant-Garde Film 1966 – 76, Tate Modern, London, UK

51st Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia

2001 – 2005

Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964 – 1977, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2001); The Cleveland Museum, Cleveland, Ohio (2002); Fundacão Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, Portugal (2004-2005)

2001

Palomino, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany

2000

Part II, 1950 – 2000 of The American Century: Art & Culture 1900 – 2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

1995

L’Art et la Vie 1952 – 1994, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

Where Are You Standing, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (collaboration with Joseph Kosuth and Sarah Charlesworth)

1990

Artists Films, Anthology Film Archives, New York

1980

Camere Incantate: Espansione dell’Immagine, Commune di Milano, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy

1978

Préface, Centre d’Art Contemporain et Ecart, Geneva, Switzerland

La Mano dell’Occhio: Giornate Internazionali del Cinema d’Artista, Salone Brunelleschiano, Istituto degli Innocenti, Florence, Italy

Art and Cinema, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

1977

Plan & Space, Academy of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium

documenta 6, Kassel, Germany

Film als Film: 1910 bis Heute, Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany

Four and Seven, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California

1976

International Forum of Avant-Garde Film 30th International Film Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland

1975

Festival of Independent British Cinema, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, UK

Ideas, The Idea Warehouse, New York

New Media I, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden

Paris Biennale, Paris, France

Luminous Realities, Wright State University Art Gallery, Dayton, Ohio (with Tony Conrad, Jud Yalkut, Paul Sharits, Nam June Paik)

The Festival of Expanded Cinema, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK

Arte Inglese Oggi 1960-76, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy

1974

Works: Words The Clocktower, New York

1973

Fylkingen Society for Contemporary Music and Arts, Autumn Arts Festival, Stockholm, Sweden

1972 – 1973

Photography Into Art, Camden Art Center, London, UK

1972

A Survey of the Avant-Garde in Britain, Gallery House, London, UK

Public Collections

Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland

Collection Frac Ile-de-France FNAC, France

Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek e.V. / Arsenal Experimental, Berlin, Germany

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

The Margulies Collection, Miami, Florida

Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden

Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

Museu d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona, Spain

Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg, Germany

Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany

Sammlung Verbund, Vienna, Austria

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California

Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf, Germany

Tate, London, UK

Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

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