For the first time in the Uk, Anthony McCall is showing his four light sculptures, You and I (ll) (2005-11), Breath lll (2005), Skirt (l) (2010) and Meeting You Halfway (2009), and they are presented here together as one installation; Vertical Works.

McCall was born in Britain and trained at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design in the mid 1960s. In the 1970s his interest was in performance and film, and in 1973 he moved to New York to pursue these concerns, where he still lives and works today. His interest in film developed from an initial desire to document his early performances, to his more well know explorations into the medium of film itself. McCall is recognised for his work that occupies a space between sculpture, cinema and drawing and this Solo show follows his impressive exhibition at the Serpentine in 2008, which gave an overview of McCall’s early works, alongside more recent sculptural light pieces. By reducing the medium of film to its most basic elements of time and light he deconstructs cinema, and aspects of the cinematic experience.

The first impression of the exhibition Vertical Works is immense darkness, like that of a vast underground cave, the desk assistant advised us to wait for our eyes to acclimatise to the darkness on the mezzanine floor before venturing further. This space is really impressive, four powerful shafts of light are visible cutting vertically through the room from the ceiling high above us to far down beneath us. Other visitors begin to come into view as they dip in and out of the pools of light projected onto the ground where they are walking.

Once down on the ground floor, these shafts act as robust walls of light, and I venture in towards them. I feel slightly nervous attempting to walk through them, these beams create such an impression of solidity, which in reality they do not possess. As these solid-like beams reach the ground images of drawings being made are projected through the light source onto the floor. Reminiscent of primitive cave drawings, simple in their linear construction, these films are hypnotic and as such hold our attention.

In a space adjacent to the main gallery here at the University of Westminster, is a scale model for Mc Call’s next, very public, project Column. It is one of 12 public art commissions awarded through Artists taking the lead by the UK Arts Councils to celebrate the Cultural Olympiad. McCall plans to create a spinning column of cloud by focusing convection. By rotating warm, moist air and combining extra heat, the air will lift off the water’s surface, ascending as a spinning column. It will rise from the Wirral, just across the river from Liverpool’s Liver Building, and the work will be visible across the North West region throughout the Olympic year. For more information on this future project see www.artiststakingthelead.org.uk

Suzanne-Lizette Mehrnoosh is an Artist based in Oxford.

Anthony Mc Call Vertical Works 1 March 2011 – 27 March 2011

Ambika P3
University of Westminster
35-100 Marylebone Road
NW1 5LS
www.p3exhibitions.com