Anthony McCall
A referencial name in transdisciplinary practices, British USA-based artist Anthony McCall articulates languages ​​such as sculpture, installation, performance , architecture, cinema and design . This show complements the retrospective held by Luciana Brito Gallery in 2011, when curator Jacopo Crivelli Visconti presented to the Brazilian public the iconic work Light Describing a Cone, among others . The selection of works in this exhibition reaffirms the artist’s central role in handling the sculptural quality of light, but also highlights the presence of performance and the material dimension in his installations.
Circulation Figures, installation which occupies the central room at the ground floor of the gallery, for example , combines the ambiance of the space to the discursive character of cinema. Screened on a canvas suspended in the center of the room, a video in which silent passages and suggestive noises alternate each other shows photographers in action. Their actions suggests what a recent article of the New York Times called “an allegory of modern narcissism ." At the same time, the room covered with crumpled newspaper sheets has two large mirrors in each side: the visual infinite multiplication will not only create a remarkable sensory experience , but provides new layers of meaning to the work . Dated 2010, this piece first release was in 1972. For Mr. McCall, this procedure, of recreating his works in new technologies, allows them to become ever closer to the original idea .
Two light "models" featured on the show are other works that the artist recreates with new devices. Installed in the rear room of the gallery, the works are part of the Solid Light Films series, developed since the early 70s. Here, the focal point of the visitor is not the screen on which the light is projected , but the path of light in space itself. McCall turns luminosity into something tangible, almost giving him solidity. Moreover, to the initially evanescent character of light a geometric accuracy is oppsed – this particular aspect raises comparisons with Sol Lewitt and Richard Serra ; artists from whom McCall is distinguished , among other things, by the ingenious ambiguity of his particular "raw material". The presence of these works not only brings to the Brazilian public one of the most popular segments of the artist's production , but also, thanks to its more affordable character and simpler mounting than the installations’, allows that such pieces may be incorporated into private collections.
As in the 2011 exhibition, the gallery also gives visibility to the artist's creative process, this time by presenting the Traveler series (2012 ) - 24 drawings that comprise studies for performative installation Eclipse, a work developed in collaboration with American choreographer Jonah Bokaer . The project involved McCall designing a performance space for viewing from its four sides , and included 36 dancers who interacted with lamps , and costumes . From the exhibited drawings, the viewer can understand how the artist seized the collaborative work and translated its issues through his own aesthetic repertoire.
The bilingual catalogue published by the gallery in 2011 will be available on the show – 130 pages, and more than a hundred images, and excerpts from reference texts , besides interviews , hitherto unpublished in Portuguese .
About the artist
Born in St. Paul's Cray , England , in 1946 , Anthony McCall settled in New York , where he lives and works since 1973. Initially, still based in England, he was mostly involved with performances and films . Later, despite a creative pause of over two decades , his research focused to light, architecture and space, emphasizing the intense public participation. McCall has a vast production, present in collections such as the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, France) , Museum of Modern Art (MoMA - New York , USA) and Tate (London, England), among others . In addition to solo shows in renowned institutions , the historical importance of his work was highlighted in exhibitions such as Into the Light: the Projected Image in American Art 1964-77, at the Whitney Museum of American Art , New York (2001-2), The Expanded Screen : Actions and Installations of the Sixties and Seventies , the Museum Moderner Kunst , Vienna (2003-4), The Geometry of Motion 1920s/1970s (2008) and On Line (2010-11) , both at MoMA .
