Anthony McCall: Solid Light, 1973, 2020, 2026 at Sean Kelly

Sean Kelly in Hell's Kitchen is showing Solid Light, 1973, 2020, 2026, Anthony McCall's seventh solo exhibition with the gallery. The title names the three years of the works on view, which together follow more than fifty years of his solid-light practice. The show runs through October 31, 2026.

McCall is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists working with light and the moving image. He emerged from the avant-garde film communities of London and New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s, turning away from narrative cinema to examine the basic conditions of film itself. The result was the solid-light installation, in which projected light takes on sculptural form. Viewers do not watch a screen; they walk through, around and inside a volume of light. Technology since the 1990s has allowed more complex installations, but his concerns remain perception, time, and the relation of body to space.

Line Describing a Cone, 1973, is presented at the gallery for the first time. A 16mm projected installation running thirty minutes, it begins with a single line that slowly traces a circle, building a luminous cone in a haze-filled room. Held in many museum collections, it is considered one of the defining works of twentieth-century installation art. McCall has described these pieces as sitting between cinema and sculpture, to be understood by moving your own body to find different viewpoints.

Swarm, 2026, premieres here. Prompted by the growing presence of drones in everyday life, it consists of two conical light volumes that rotate in opposite directions, one clockwise and one counterclockwise, over a fifteen-minute loop. A soundtrack by David Grubbs, performed by Chris McIntyre, builds in intensity as the work proceeds, continuing the long collaboration between McCall and Grubbs.

Skylight, 2020, is a vertical single-projection work in which light is cast from above onto a plinth, forming a slowly shifting cone that can be viewed from every side. Grubbs's score evokes an imagined thunderstorm approaching and receding, with distant rumbles, lightning flashes and steady rain. The loop lasts sixteen minutes.

McCall has had major solo shows at Tate Modern, Guggenheim Bilbao, Centre Pompidou, Hamburger Bahnhof and Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, among others. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and Tate.