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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).
Born 1946 in St. Paul’s Cray, UK.
Lives and works in New York, USA.
Design studies, Ravenbourne-College of Art and Design, London, UK
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
Marie-Josi-Prize of the 5th International Experimental Film Competition, Knokke, Belgium (for ‘Line Describing a Cone’)
Solid Light, Tate Modern, London, England
Raised Voices, Sprüth Magers, London, UK
Anthony McCall: Split Second, Guggenheim-Museum Bilbao, Bizkaia, Spain
New Solid Light Works and Early Drawings, Sean Kelly, Los Angeles, USA
Anthony McCall, Guest of Honor, Offscreen, Hôtel de Rothschild, Paris, France
Eyes On: Anthony McCall, Denver Art Museum, USA
Anthony McCall: Solid Light Works, The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK
Anthony McCall. Solid Light Works, Pioneer Works, New York, USA
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
Anthony McCall, Fundació Gaspar Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
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
Anthony McCall. Solid Light Films 1971-2014, Eye Amsterdam, Netherlands
Anthony McCall. Crossing the Elbe, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany
Anthony McCall, Les Abattoirs – Frac Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, France
Anthony McCall, Lokremise St. Gallem Light Show, Hayward Gallery
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
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
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
Anthony McCall. Leaving (withTwo-Minute Silence), Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
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
Anthony McCall. Elements for a Retrospective, Utzon Center, Aalborg, Denmark
Anthony McCall. You and I, Horizontal III, Galerie Martine Aboucaya, Paris, France
Sean Kelly Gallery, New York
Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Rochechouart, France
Serpentine Gallery, London, UK
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
Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/Main, Germany
Galerie Martine Aboucaya, Paris, France
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
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
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
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
Drawing Biennial 2024, Drawing Room London, London, UK
QAGOMA, Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
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
Deceptive Images—Playing with Painting and Photography, Marta Herford, Museum for Art, Architecture and Design, Herford, Germany
Negativer Raum, Skulptur und Installation im 20./21. Jahrhundert, ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe, Germany
Danser Brut, LAM, Lille, France
GAGARIN the Artists in their Own Words. 2000-2016. The String Traveller, S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium
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
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
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
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
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
Electric Nights, LAboral, Gijón, Spain
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Lichtkunst aus Kunstlicht, ZKM / Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe, Germany
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
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)
X-Screen: The Expanded Screen: Actions and Installations of the Sixties and Seventies, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, Austria
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
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)
Palomino, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany
Part II, 1950 – 2000 of The American Century: Art & Culture 1900 – 2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
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)
Artists Films, Anthology Film Archives, New York
Camere Incantate: Espansione dell’Immagine, Commune di Milano, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy
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
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
International Forum of Avant-Garde Film 30th International Film Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland
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
Works: Words The Clocktower, New York
Fylkingen Society for Contemporary Music and Arts, Autumn Arts Festival, Stockholm, Sweden
Photography Into Art, Camden Art Center, London, UK
A Survey of the Avant-Garde in Britain, Gallery House, London, UK
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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