Air

Anthony McCall Born 1946, London, United Kingdom Lives and works in New York, United States Air is so often invisible and elusive, something our attention passes through rather than focuses on. Anthony McCall’s expansive light installation Crossing 2016 draws our attention to the volume of air held within the gallery, as a space of dramatic potential. In McCall’s work, an architecture of light slowly shifts and unfurls within the larger darkness. White light is projected onto the floor in twin pairs of beams: a near-full ellipse and a straight line dance together in one pairing; an ellipse and curved line in the other. Like graphic code, the simple geometry of these ‘drawings’ can be read clearly on the dark carpet, but what is surprising is the way each long beam of light appears convincingly solid within the haze-filled gallery. In three dimensions, the straight line becomes a slanting diagonal plane, and the broken ellipse a sheltering volume which seems to invite us to step inside. These forms change very slowly, as McCall explains: Setting the speed of motion at a threshold between no movement and movement reduces the anxiety about what may happen next. And it enables you to really watch change, which is actually a rather rare experience. You, the watcher, become the fastest thing in the room. 1 Some choose to examine what is happening before engaging with the work, walking around the central play of light while their eyes adjust to the dimness. Others are excited to immerse themselves, reaching out to touch the ‘solid light’ — mesmerised as their hands pass through the bright slow-moving veil, from dark to light to dark again. Strangers group together in the space: some walk within the walls of light, while others walk through them. Some turn and spin or dance, while others sit and watch quietly. 1 Anthony McCall quoted in Graham Ellard and Stephen Johnston, Anthony McCall: Notebooks and Conversations , Lund Humphries, Surrey, in association with Kunstmuseum, St Gallen, 2015, p.123. Anthony McCall / Crossing 2016 (installation view, GOMA 2016) 189 Change