The art line-up at the Tate Modern is looking brighter than ever, with a radiant exhibition celebrating renowned artist Anthony McCall currently on display at the spectacular gallery. The exhibit features multiple light installations, with McCall famed for his unmatched innovation and pioneering stance on cinema, light, and installation art.
Entitled Solid Light, the installations is quintessentially reflective of the artist’s distinctive style, boasting projected light that’s visibly enhanced using a thin mist to produce solid light shapes and patterns. The exhibition unites sacred art forms like film, sculpture, and drawing to curate an immersive encounter that’s not to be missed.
We’re assuming this exhibition is a full-circle moment for McCall, who developed his early career here in London in the early seventies by being involved in the capital’s thriving independent film community.
This milestone exhibit even presents some of his earlier works, featuring photographs and film footage of the artist’s earliest performances, including the significant Landscape for Fire 1972, which depicts his art collective participating in a carefully choreographed sequence performed outdoors.
You’ll also be able to see the artistic progression and evolution, including McCall’s work he created after moving to New York City later in the seventies. This is where he invited the viewer to focus on the light rather than the projection with his famous piece Line Describing a Cone (pictured throughout), which will be the focal point of this upcoming exhibition.
This is the first solid light work visitors will see, created using a film projector and 16-millimetre film, precepting a thin pencil of light shone onto a wall that will eventually ‘draw’ an entire circle. Although simple in many ways, the choreographed light shines a spotlight (quite literally) on how impactful simplicity can be.
Finally, the exhibition concludes with one of the artist’s latest works, Split-Second Mirror, 2018, perfectly showcasing McCall’s entire, genre-defying career. Using a mirror to interrupt a plane of light, the work is perhaps McCall’s most visually complex to date, continuing to push the boundaries when it comes to sculpture and light installations.
You can view Anthony McCall: Solid Light at the Tate Modern from 27 June 2024 until 27 April 2025. Tickets cost £14 but members go free. For more information and tickets, click here to visit the Tate’s website.