Anthony McCall

Anthony McCall (born 1946) is a British-born New York based artist known for his ‘solid-light’ installations, a series that he began in 1973 with "Line Describing a Cone," in which a volumetric form composed of projected light slowly evolves in three-dimensional space.

[1][2] After moving to New York in 1973, McCall continued his fire performances and developed his 'solid light' film series, beginning with Line Describing a Cone, in 1973.

In darkened, haze-filled rooms, the projections create an illusion of three-dimensional shapes, ellipses, waves and flat planes that gradually expand, contract or sweep through space.

In these works, the artist sought to deconstruct cinema by reducing film to its principle components of time and light and removing the screen entirely as the prescribed surface for projection.

Very much unlike the New York lofts where dust and cigarette smoke created a haze, Swedish clean air shocked him severely, casting him into a "wilderness" that would last two decades.

McCall also developed a parallel series of vertically oriented works, starting with "Breath" (2004) in which a projector mounted on the ceiling projects directly downwards onto the floor, creating a ten-metre-tall, tent-like, almost architectural enclosure with a 4-metre wide base.