Anthony McCall
Line Describing a Cone, 1973

Artist
Anthony McCall

Title
Line Describing a Cone

Year of creation
1973

Technology and duration
16mm film, black and white, silent, 30 min

Year of acquisition
2015

Anthony McCall (born 1946 in St. Paul's Cray, England) became known in the early 1970s with his unique light installations, the Solid Light Films.

McCall has developed a distinctive technique for his works: animated lines drawn in white on black are projected into a space filled with fine mist (originally smoke and dust), so that the two-dimensional drawings appear as seemingly concrete, three-dimensional shapes. The artist began the series in 1973 after moving to New York (where he has lived since) with the influential film Line Describing a Cone and further developed the concept in installations such as Long Film for Four Projectors (1974). Originally inspired by the cinematic avant-garde around the London Film-Makers' Co-op, the artist turned cinema on its head from the start, slowing it down and creating a public space that could be explored in its entirety. His works therefore exist at the boundaries of cinema, sculpture and drawing. The works are fleeting, but still seem tangible and physical. Thrown horizontally across the room onto the wall, or in the most recent works, falling from the ceiling to the floor, they envelop the viewer in unique, slowly moving cones of light.