artist recommend…Anthony McCall

totally turned on by Kristofer here at Djerassi. We were talking about the show Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface currently showing at the SD Museum of Contemporary – we were discussing the works of Irwin and all the usual suspects who worked with light in their work. Then we started talking about projections and projection drawings. Kristofer mentioned Anthony McCall and gave me Anthony McCall: The Solid Light Films and Related Works, edited by Christopher Eamon to peruse. I was struck by the pages and pages and pages of his sketches of pieces where he’d literally draw out formulas and frames of 16mm films planning how light would be manipulated in order to project his light into space creating “sculptures.” He definitely has theories that I aligned myself with, most particularly this one:

“it makes more sense to categorize work in the artworld in relation to three broad bundles of discourses: the sculptural, the pictorial, the cinematic. The “sculptural,” post “expanded field,” would cover any work that addresses issues of form in space. The “pictorial” would include all work connected to the making of images, and the “cinematic” would be extended to include all art that foregrounds time, or movement, or both – performance, sound, screen-based works of various kinds, as well as projected images (this extension can surely be justified by pointing to the Greeek root of “cinema” – “kine” meaning “movement”). These three centers of gravity have pourous, overlapping borders, and clearly, much interesting work operates on the borders between the three centers, or sets up bridges that connect them.”

He articulates so well what I’ve always felt projection was. He was doing his thing with actual 16mm projectors…here’s are a few example of his work ranging from the late 70’s to present day.  If you have a chance check out the book.