Anthony McCall brings light sculptures to Tate Modern

Tate Modern in London is presenting a focused exhibition of the work of Anthony McCall. The exhibition, featuring the artist's immersive light sculptures, is titled Solid Light. The Tate is inviting visitors to affect the substance and shape of the installed works by moving through the space and interacting with them, thus offering new visual perspectives.

Anthony McCall graduated in graphic design at the Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in the late 1960s. He expressed an interest in cinema early in his career, joining London's independent filmmaking community in the 1970s, where he caused shockwaves with his first experimental film Landscape for Fire (1973).

His first forays into the realms of light and sculpture began when he moved to New York in 1973. Inspired by the shapes created by the light emitted from the film projectors in old New York cinemas, his first experimental “solid light” sculpture Line Describing a Cone (1973) relied on a 16mm film projector and the haze of dust and smoke in New York lofts to draw out a circle of light which slowly expands into a three-dimensional light cone.

With the advent of new digital technologies and the increased availability of smoke machines, McCall found that there was greater artistic potential to mine with his work. His light sculptures represent a departure from the traditional notion of the human subject as passive observer of a cinematic image projected onto a screen. Instead, McCall invites the audience to interact with his luminous artworks, to step into the interstitial spaces between cinema, sculpture, drawing and performance.

In addition to recent solid light works the exhibition also includes photographs and film footage of the artist’s earliest performances. Solid Light is on display at Tate Modern until April 27, 2025. More details about the exhibition and other public programs can be found at the Tate Modern site.