Anthony McCall–Technology and Immersive Experiences in Art–Solid Light /Tate Modern

A pioneer of experimental cinema, but also conceptual technology (yes, I made this one up), Anthony McCall has built a unique place in the recent history and present of contemporary art. From the UK to the US, from analogue to digital, McCall has created a body of work as playful as it is culturally relevant.

For more information about the exhibition go here.

My co-host is Liberté Nutti, who you can follow here for good tips about modern and contemporary art: @libertenuti.

To know more about her, you can check her website.

Support Exhbitionistas here.

Follow us:

⁠Substack⁠

⁠Website⁠

⁠Website⁠

Bluesky: @exhibitionistas.bsky.social

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
Hello, exhibitionistas. I hope you're doing very, very
well. I'm your host, Joanna Pianevis,
independent writer and curator. So I got a phone call.
I got a phone call asking me whyI hadn't covered Anthony McCall
in the podcast yet and I couldn't really answer.

(00:27):
And to be honest, I had been secretly wanting someone to
nudge me in that direction. We have been covering Tate
Modern quite a bit. We'll be covering at Atkins's
exhibition at the Britain, so I thought it's too much.
But Tate, you've been doing a wonderful job.
I could not avoid covering SolidLight, the exhibition that is

(00:51):
still open and will be open until June.
We do go back to the 70s and then we reconnect with the
beginning of the century. Anthony McCall is quite a unique
career and we have lots of fun. We talk a lot about cinema,
about drawing, about immersive experiences in contemporary art.

(01:16):
We ask ourselves what their future is and what the future of
museums is as well, if we're talking about technology.
So it's going to be a good one. I think you're going to enjoy
it. And also, you know, I have to do
my job and remind you that you can support my work.
You can support exhibitionists. There are several ways of doing

(01:36):
it. But I also want to tell you that
I'm writing quite a bit on sub stacks.
So if you're interested in alternating your relationship
with me through reading rather than listening, I have my page
over there. So it's Joanna, Pierre Nevis.
It's easy to find me and you canalso support me there if you
prefer it. I will put a link into the shows

(01:59):
notes so you can donate. You can just do a one off
contribution or you can become amember.
Same thing on Sub Stack. It's up to you.
I'm so grateful to those who support exhibitionists, to those
who also support me on Sub Stack, it's incredible.
So without further ado, I think you're going to really enjoy
this episode. So let's do this.

(02:21):
Let's dig into Anthony Mccalls. Solid, light, a tape, modern.
Hello and welcome to Exhibitionist.

(02:41):
There's the podcast where we visit exhibitions so that you
have to and we visit exhibitionsseparately and compare notes
during the recording just for you.
And as usual, I have a very special Co host.
She is returning. I'm talking about Liberty Nutty,
your favorite art advisor, and we will be discussing at her own

(03:06):
request, Anthony Mccall's exhibition, Solid Light at Tate
Modern. And fear not, it's open until
the 2nd of June. So you have a lot of time to go
and see it. First of all, let me welcome
Liberty to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming
back. Liberty, how are you doing?
Hi, Adriana. Nice to see you again.

(03:28):
And I'm very excited to speak about Anthony McCall and his
exhibition Solid Lights. What's your perception of
Anthony McCall? Did you?
Had you experienced his work before?
A lot? What, what, what, what?
What's the idea you have of him?Oh, OK, tricky question.
To start with, I'm a little bit ashamed to say that I've never

(03:53):
heard about him before, which you know.
That's so great. If he if he's listened to US one
day, I really apologize about that.
I've just, I just had no idea. And I went to Tate in the
morning on Sunday to catch up with Mike Kelly, which was

(04:14):
closing two weeks ago. And take when you are a member,
you can go, they do something which is fantastic.
You have an hour on Sunday before they open for the
members. And that's really worth the
membership in a way. And then I was alone and I, I, I

(04:35):
went to see my Kelly and then the room above there was solid
light. And I love the title and I was
really intrigued and I thought that was a very beautiful title.
And I just didn't really understand it.
And I thought, oh, I'll go and see.
And that's where the adventure started.
Then I'm completely, if I may say, virgin to his work.

(04:56):
And I was so stunned and so impressed that I called you and
I said, let's talk about him. I want to know who he is.
Because there is a small introduction at Tate, but they
don't say much. That's why I was even more
intrigued in a way. And I went with no, no
preconception, no special ideas.I was very fresh in the morning,

(05:19):
you know, when you're very curious.
I was alone, or so you. Have that clarity right that
morning clarity and you're so available.
And when you visit an exhibit, Ilove visiting exhibition with
friends, but when you go alone, in a way you are for myself, I'm
much more, you know, I really open the gate and I really

(05:41):
haven't. I don't know, I'm much more
sensitive. And then you think you open I'm
I'm slower also, and that's why the reception was maybe stronger
for me for this works. Here we go then, I've told you
my secret. History is so full of these

(06:02):
figures, a bit like Anthony McCall, who have kind of been
intermittently here. I remember McCall being
discussed by colleagues, like senior colleagues, about, well,
we're in 2025 S 25 years ago, maybe because of the show that

(06:28):
Chrissy Isles organized at the Whitney Museum called Into the
Light. I was in Portugal at the time
and I remember someone telling me about this exhibition, which
was about experimental films. So sculptural propositions,
experimental conceptual propositions involving film in

(06:49):
some way. I remember experiencing the work
and I didn't have time to research.
Did the exhibition travel and come to Portugal?
I don't remember. But I remember seeing his most
famous work Line describing a cone in the flesh and thinking,
wow, if experimentalism can be this, then I'm I'm all in.

(07:15):
I'm all in. So shall we dig into the life of
Anthony McCall? You know, Listen not to bury the
lead. You're not going to learn much
more than you already know, I'm telling you.
Yeah, it's quite a secret. Not secret, but discreet I would
say. So let's dig into.
Tell us more. Anthony Mccall's life, so he was

(07:38):
born in 1946 in Saint Paul's Cray.
I looked it up and it's near Orpington near London.
OK. But you know, Saint Paul's Cray
could be anywhere. It's very vague.
Again, like we were saying, he'svery reserved.
And I didn't do you know what? This time I kind of felt like

(07:59):
respecting it, you know, becausethere's this this, there's this
aura in his life. And when you read interviews of
him, he's either incredibly technical or he talks about some
events that I'm going to tell you they are so huge and had
such impact on his life and his creative output that it kind of

(08:23):
becomes a bit about that. So, so he studied at, he studied
graphic design and photography at Ravensbourne College on the
outskirts of London. And so I'm, I'm quoting him.
So this is already his young adult years.
He became quote, steeped in other ways of using cinema.

(08:44):
It was called the experiment, experimental film, it was called
expanded cinema, structural film, New American cinema.
So he was involved with a group of people called Exits who were
interested in cinema, but they were a little bit like some
visual arts artists, interested in the moving image and the

(09:09):
display and the apparatus of projection in cinema, but not
really in cinema itself in termsof a projected image that tells
the story. So much so that he, in 1972,
thought of a piece to be filmed called Landscape for Fire, which

(09:29):
is presented in the exhibition as a film which was a sort of
orthogonally displayed or placedspots of fire in the field that
were then filmed. I mean, the installation was
filmed, the lighting, the fires were filmed.
There's a sound, but the film isincredibly experimental.

(09:50):
It's atmospheric, so he's in therelationship with an outdoor
space, but obviously it's already about light, so there's
something happening there. This movie is very just for
diligence. It's it then it's the in the
first room. It is very 70s.
You know, the way they're dressed and all that.
Just that people can understand.Absolutely.

(10:11):
So something happens in 1973, which is that he meets and
that's the thing that really, especially when you look at
pictures of him, so very kind ofsimple and elegant, not too
sophisticated attire. He he seems like a very

(10:32):
reserved, calm man. I don't know how to describe it
otherwise. And he falls in love with Carol
Lee Schneeman, of all people, and he follows her to New York.
So in 1973. Incredible.
He goes to New York, which for me was the most surprising thing

(10:53):
about this whole story. She had lots of friends there.
So when he arrives in New York, he a whole world opens to him.
So he says, and I'm quoting him.It was a revelation to find a
bar full of people talking aboutart.
So he describes in New York exactly as we imagine it to be,

(11:15):
full of people and full of a community, with a community of
people who are completely, 100% engaged in their own work, but
also in other people's works. And that's what really warmed
his heart and made him feel likehe belonged immediately.
So he says, quote, I was pleasedto be there with Carolee, and I

(11:37):
got to meet a lot of her performance friends.
Solowitz and Mel Bokner visited my studio within three months of
landing. I always considered that
tremendously generous. So he felt welcomed by the New
York Intelligentsia, the New York groundbreaking trailblazer

(11:58):
artist of the time, and he started creating together with
them. So one of the things that he
talks about is that he had a, a technical issue, say, I don't
know what, you know, what to useto light fires in a field.
And someone would say, oh, I know this dude who helped so and
so Judy Chicago back in LA, whatever to do her own Fresno,

(12:23):
to do her own installations. I'll take you there.
And then they would talk. The three of them would get
together and then kind of go together to make an Anthony
McCall piece in a field. So it was a very creative time.
He experimented quite a lot. And in 1973 he devises line

(12:47):
describing a cone. So that's the major turning
point in his activity where he first works with a 16mm camera,
a projector and camera. And he works with the cone of
light that is projected by the machine.

(13:07):
And the whole piece is absolutely what he calls an
animation film drew in some wayson the wall through a
projection, through a camera, A dots.
So it starts with a dot of lightthat very slowly starts forming
a circle and in that movement. So it takes 5 minutes for you to

(13:28):
kind of realize how it's how it's working and what it's
doing. And once the, the the sort of
orbit starts to happen, you start to realize that there is a
sort of a silky cone in space that seems incredibly material

(13:49):
and you start playing with it. You cannot but go into the the
cone. And I remember seeing the work
and thinking, can I should I, you know that behavior in
exhibitions, you never know if you can touch, if you can move,
if you can cross, but you're supposed to.
And one of the really, really enjoyable things about this is

(14:10):
not only you experiencing the work, but also watching other
people doing it, because the smoke and the atmosphere gives a
materiality and a tangibility tothis cone of light.
And we'll talk about that aspectin a bit.
So he starts devising several works and something happens in

(14:34):
1977 and he's invited to presentline describing a cone at the
Modena Musette in Stockholm in Sweden.
So he travels there, everything's installed, the
everyone's sitting and it startsfor the audience.
So it's presented like a film. So it has a start.
And he says, well, the first 5 minutes are incredibly

(14:59):
unsettling because nothing happens.
But it's the 70s, right? We're used to this.
So the audience stays. This is in Stockholm, everyone's
polite, they wait. After 5 minutes, nothing
happens. The film goes on.
Minutes and minutes pass Nothing.
It's absolutely invisible. And the reason why it's

(15:22):
invisible, it's because in New York he would present his films,
his his installations in world warehouses that were incredibly
dusty. The atmosphere was full of dust.
There would be at least 10 people smoking cigarettes and
that dust and that cigarette smoke would materialize the

(15:43):
lights. No one was smoking at the Mudana
Musette. There was no dust.
It was an impeccable, clean, ascetic space and therefore the
film was invisible. He says that people stayed for a
long time until the end, very politely, nothing happened.
Meanwhile, he was running to a shop, buying cigarettes.

(16:08):
He came back, lit a bunch of cigarettes.
The security guard grabbed him by the collar, saying what are
you doing? You cannot light cigarettes in
here. It was a whole thing thing and
it was kind of a disaster. At the end of the of this
decade, he stops working. So he becomes a graphic designer
and he says, well, I needed to make a living.

(16:31):
There's there's this huge hiatusfrom Huron.
So from the end of the 70 seventies.
And when he was asked whether itwas difficult for him, how he
lived this kind of distancing from his own practice, not only
the art world, but also his own practice, he said, well, every
so often someone would want to interview me about my art.

(16:55):
And that was always rather painful.
I was always quite troubled by the reminding, by the reminder.
And so when he was asked if he had any artistic urges, because
this was isn't with this hiatus lasted until the end of the 90s,
he replied, quote, yes, but there's something important

(17:17):
called denial. The studio was very demanding,
deadline orientated work. There wasn't any time UN quote.
So what he started doing, and that's even more painful I find
is he would do like Richard Serra's books, for example, had
a graphic design studio and he had a lot of work.

(17:37):
It was quite successful. He was working with other
artists and so he had this time,so 20 years, a span of 20 years,
mostly without producing any work.
And this is the important part. He came back to an art practice
at the end of the 90s because technologically he was

(18:03):
interested again. So he found that there were
something called fog machines that could work with his
installations. And so at the turn of the
century, he participates in thisexhibition in 2000 by Chrissy
Iles, who's a very, very important curator.

(18:23):
And who, who's the exhibition Into the Lights, like reached
Portugal, You know, at some point, it was a big deal.
It had lots of reviews. It marked an era and it's funny
that it was in 2000 and it was very technological and at the
same time it was very analog. And So what happens in Anthony

(18:44):
Mccalls life is that he goes from the analog to the digital.
That's a really interesting story as well.
That will probably help us in our conversation to the fine or
to try and play with what exactly it is that he's doing in
terms of the material, the genre, what what is happening in

(19:05):
his work. What's interesting also here in
this Baku, which I was wonderingwhen he has such a strong, I
would say conceptual. I think he's really a conceptual
artist and you're so much in in the landscape and successful and
the beauty of his career is to have not made too many works and

(19:29):
they are quite spaced in time. And I was wondering how do you
make a living as an artist? Because to keep such a line, not
to do commercial projects, you know, it's if you do one work
every 10 years on a retrospective way, it looks OK.
But on a day-to-day, how do you make a living?

(19:52):
I think his profile as an artistis a really interesting one, and
it's a profile that kind of defies, I think, our idea of
what an artist is. And I find that incredibly
exciting because we usually talkabout women retrieving from the
art world, female artists havinga hard time being followed,
having exposure. And here we have a man who had a

(20:15):
certain point. Just stepped back.
I think there's a beautiful encounter between concepts and
technology and his work that is absolutely fascinating.
And this because so the landscape for fire was a very
mathematical piece. When you look at it, you think

(20:37):
of Judy Chicago, who was also using smoke.
And there's a real connection between them outside in, in the
in the, in the landscape, in thefields.
But him, he was calculating, he was crunching numbers.
He was really, really programming things to the
millimeter. And what attracted him to the

(21:00):
fog machine that was activated with oil.
So it had a little smell, but not strong enough for him not to
use it. So he started using it to
reactivate his pieces until the haze machine was invented.
And the haze machine is with thesorts of starch.
So it's, it's, it doesn't have any odor and it is very dense.

(21:22):
It produces a very dense smoke. But another thing that happened
as well is that he started working with programmers.
So now he wasn't painting on film.
Now he was again calculating anddrawing, so he was drawing a lot
and he was working with the cone.

(21:45):
That's the major thing. And he sometimes he says someone
questions him about him about this, and he says, yeah, I could
have been interested in the pyramidal shape, maybe like you
could have sculpted the projection.
But that's what's interesting, because that was what the
machine was doing, I think, personally.
Yeah, it's the cinema. It's the idea of the cinema, the
cone. You can think also cinema

(22:09):
Paradisio. You know the end of the movie
when you just see that code. This is a continuation of that
in a way and that's makes his were quite romantic.
Yeah, yes. Oh, and there's another thing in
this new era is that he says. Well, the titles of the pieces
before were very descriptive, a line describing a code.

(22:30):
So that was the time where conceptualism was at its peak.
It was all about being literal and descriptive.
So line describing a cone that. Seems I would call that DRY.
Dry as conceptual artists often accused of being.
And it is to some point. It plays that game, doesn't it?
And now, of course, the works that he's presenting in the

(22:54):
exhibition, you have, for example, face to face.
And he says that when he installed one of the 1st works
that he recreated, he saw the image breathing.
So the the 1st work that he produces is called breathing.
So he says, well, it was an Organism.
I could see that it was a body. And he doesn't prevent himself

(23:18):
from going there and from being,like you say, much more romantic
about it, or at least much more lyrical about the relationship
with the works. And he talks about also the fact
that he, his work is not site specific.
So it's geared towards the body of the the spectator.

(23:40):
And he says it's site sensitive,but it doesn't play with the
architecture. So it's not about playing with
something that is there. It's about creating, like you
were saying, an immersive environment for the spectator.
And so one thing to know about his work is that you need to be
in the dark. Like you said, it completely

(24:01):
subverts what you who think an exhibition is, which is
something very well lit on a wall to of course simplify it.
It's very subversive in many, many ways in terms of
installation. So he takes off again, a new
new, new start of a career. I want to highlight a moment in

(24:22):
his career because my rabbit hole of research took me there
to Tasmania in 2015. There's a a festival called Dark
Mofo in Tasmania and he created something called Night Ship for

(24:43):
the Dewent River. And so for 10 nights, Night Ship
was a ship that would sail alongthe shore with a Searchlight.
So it was obviously a cone of light into the night that you
could see in the darkness. I like the idea that the night

(25:05):
is kind of a dark room of a museum as well.
I like this this notion. So yes, we come to now the Tate,
the exhibition at the Tate You. Know now he's, he's, I don't
know. He's in his sixties, 70s I would
say. Well, he was born in 46.
OK, then he's Yeah, he's. In his. 70s, late 70s.

(25:28):
He also has two very good galleries, one in London and
Germany and then one in America.Then maybe also when you get to
this really established galleries, they also, you know,
their work is to make sure you are represented in in museum.
Then there is a momentum of I think what he's doing which is

(25:53):
relevant and also where he is because before if he was just a
graphic designer, becoming quiteobscure.
I would say that his work is being regularly shown and
touring kind of the planets and the galleries that you mentioned
is Putmaggers in Germany and andand the UK and Sean Kelly in New

(26:16):
York. If I'm.
Not, yes, exactly. New York.
Kelly. Yeah, they're two really big
galleries. Liberty, apologies, I didn't
tell you much more than you already knew.
I think it is a life. No, I think On the contrary, I
think it's it's like his work, there is an elegance to even his
life. It's quite discreet.
And when you hear him talking, you know, even though, because I

(26:40):
was wondering, is he an Americanartist or an English artist?
And when he speaks, he's, he hasa strong English accent.
He's he's very English. And even in the way he speaks,
he's very restrained, which reserve which keeps the the
yeah, not restrained, more reserved.
And the way also he presents things are very reserved.

(27:02):
Then I think you gave us a lot of clues and and that really
kind of goes very well with his work.
So what was the what was the the, the thing that kind of stay
with you regarding his biography?
That is an artist who started from the 70s in the 70s and then

(27:25):
the, the, this amazing in the, the, the, the, the first cone
light ease 1973, which is a longtime ago.
And then that's what I love in his work is the the whole
discovery of the the haze and the way he was using before the

(27:49):
the smoke and then the dust, which kind of gives his work a
very bohemian feel. Yes.
And you know when it because it's so clean and conceptual,
but then you have this, this fantastic.
You can see it's New York, it's fun, they're smoking, it's part
of the crowd. And you can feel that in, in

(28:12):
that work. And I just didn't really know
when I hear you, I'm like, of course, that's his humanity.
That, that's why the work is so fantastic.
I think because it started so early and it's, it's, it's, it's
rooted in that bohemian, very artistic moment of New York.
You go back in time and you see where it comes from.

(28:33):
It's quite touching and moving. So I think we should go for a
break. Dear listeners, if you want to
get a cuppa, if you want a coffee, if you need to go, you
know, just just take this littlebreak.
We'll be back very, very shortly.
So stay tuned, stay with us. Music.

(29:21):
Welcome back everyone. So I'm here with Liberty Mutti
and we are talking about AnthonyMccalls exhibition Solid Light
at Tate Modern. I kind of breezed through the
1st 2:00 rooms. I had seen Landscape of Fire,
the film which is in the second room before, can't remember
where. And the first room is very

(29:44):
technical drawings, some photos of the the works that you're
going to see then in the third room.
And so it will it is a curated exhibition.
It was curated by the great Gregor Moyer.
And so this exhibition pays attention also to the technical
aspect of Anthony Mccall's work.But because I knew what was

(30:07):
waiting for me in the last room and because maybe I saw so many
drawings of his at Martina Buchaya Gallery in Paris, which
I love and that are really beautiful.
He has really beautiful drawings.
These ones were far more technical.
So although I'm a drawing person, I, I honestly did not, I

(30:28):
have to confess, spend much timein the first room.
What was your your experience? The first room is very
technical, it's very small. And like you, I skipped it
because I just wanted to see thework and I just didn't have the,
the attention or to really, you know, get very nitty gritty.
And it's, it must have been a difficult decision.

(30:51):
As a curator, do you put that atthe beginning to explain or do
you let people experience? Then you do a bright room with
all the drawings. You know, as a visitor, I would
have preferred that because you experience everything.
You're completely open, you're completely, you know, and then
you say, OK, what it is about and then you have the CD and
then you have the drawings. And that would have been better

(31:14):
because when I left then then you you end up in front of the
of the lift and then that's it. Then I skipped the first room
got in the second room where youhave a classic movie on the wall
and the movie is a field, very green field with white.

(31:37):
I think it's they're all men, they're all dressed completely
in white, which is very 70s and very.
Cult like. Yeah, very cold, very John
Lennon. You know, they're, they're all
very, very long. They have long hair.
They have, I think maybe some beard.
And then they have this, this flash trousers and then the the

(31:59):
jacket which goes with it. Then it's totally 70s and they
are lighting every, I don't know, two or three meters.
They're putting these these fires and you have these fires
clearly in special sports on that that.
Was in 1972 and it's called Landscape for Fire.
And those people are the membersof the exit group of

(32:21):
experimental cinema that he's that he's worked with.
Yeah. It's quite powerful.
It's, it's very conceptual, it'svery 70s, but there is no
explanation. Then it kind of puts you in the
mood, but it's difficult to understand what it is.
And I was like, right then you watch it a little bit and then

(32:44):
there's a corridor or kind of A and then you just know you're
going to enter to something else.
And that's where I went. But in retrospect, this movie
from the 70's, the landscape forfires really stayed with me
because he anchors. He anchors the work.

(33:05):
He kind of and it's a very strong image.
They're like a bit like you said, druids.
They're like druids. You feel you could be in Stone
Age or some some weird Celtic village in in Wiltshire.
I don't know where it was were shot, but and he and he makes

(33:27):
sense with the work afterwards. I think then that kind of gives
some weight to the whole project.
Then from that, that room we there's a corridor and then you
get in very, very dark rooms where there's this projection of

(33:47):
light through a cone. Then as always in a very dark
room, you need some time to adapt and understand where you
are. Are you safe?
You know, like when you are a child, you kind of you touch a
wall to make sure this is OK. And you know, your your light,
your eyes will adapt to that environment.

(34:09):
And soon you will see see the grey in the black.
And then there's this first great work, which is I think the
very captivating. And it's it's in the first
corner in the movie at the entrance, Anthony Michael say,
don't look at the drawing. Look at the cone.
Look at where the light comes. Then I turn there and then you

(34:30):
think, oh, I'm going to be completely blinded by that
light. But the way it does it, you are
not. Then you get you have this light
in your in your face. And that light also creates
space because the way it's quitetechnically expense.
I'm not sure I completely understood how he did it, but

(34:50):
because it this projector turns,it makes in the lights makes
these diagonals, which are like solid blocks of they're like
solid blocks. But actually you can put your
hands through because it's only air and that's created by the
A's. Then it's and it's very fun.

(35:12):
You start to put your hand through it and your head and,
and the, the, the haze create that great atmosphere, which is
which breaks this really dry andvery geometric aspect of the
work. And also the cinema thing,
because you are looking at the projector, the cinema, you look

(35:33):
the other way and it's just fantastic.
And, and I was alone then I justreally got very playful in it.
And it's just beautiful. The lines are diagonal.
They're like big blocks of imagine if you had a, a big
glass, then it's, it's very straight.
The other I'm, I'm more round inthe round.

(35:55):
This is very, very straight. Then you kind of go, my hands
was going from one side to the other.
You go underneath, above. Yeah, it's, it's and you touch
the work. Normally you're not allowed to
touch works because it's on the wall and here first you're in
the dark and then you can go through it.
And that's where he gets technical with him, right?

(36:18):
So he explains the way he devises the work and he's
incredibly careful with the right distance of the projector
line describing a cone, he says because it's film and it's
painted on, so the film is worked on, he said.
And because it's that kind of projector and that kind of

(36:41):
material, so the film is celluloid.
He says the light is very silky.The cone of lights that it
creates is incredibly silky. Whereas with the other
projectors, because it's pixels,it becomes the pixels.
Make it a bit, you can see the pixels and it's a bit clumpy.
So in both cases the the texturechanges, but the light is

(37:05):
incredibly, it's almost a blue, It almost has a blue kind of
hue. It's really, really beautiful
and it's very soft. And the fog, as you say, gives
it a sort of a gentle atmospheric, almost Caspar David
Friedrich like contemplative aspect to it, only you can

(37:28):
interact with it. It's a massive impact compared
to the means that are used to produce the impacts.
So yeah, I mean and all the works are in the same room.
The atmosphere is so full and you see so much of that miss.
You're like, oh, I'm going to bea little bit temp at the end,
which you're not. And the machine, maybe I was.

(37:51):
We were three in the exhibition.The machine also makes a teeny
noise, which is like like the wind.
OK, because that's I think that's when then you need some
time to relax. You need to be really, you need
time to adapt to your environment.
When you're there, you notice the mist, you notice the age,

(38:12):
you notice the light, you noticethis, this very stuff sound,
which is. And then, yeah, you think I'm in
the Highland in Scotland somewhere.
You know that's. But tell us how he does it.
So there's another thing that separates so the analogue with
the digital is that so and and here we enter into the

(38:35):
discussion about what it is thathe's doing.
And you very rightly said beforethe break that he comes from
experimental film, from graphic design and from a bohemian,
incredibly attuned group of people who were making things

(38:57):
together. Remember this was also the time
where Yoko Ono, and he does mention Yoko Ono as well, was
making you watch a drop of waterdry, you know, together in in a
sort of these very meditative experimental at times when

(39:17):
described a bit dry were turned into something incredibly warm
because they were the activitiesof a group of like minded people
who wanted to go into a higher state of mind.
They wanted to experiment other realities through these very
strange, sometimes funny when you describe them, actions and

(39:41):
happenings. And so he was coming from there
and but he was also coming from this idea of deconstructing
cinema and looking at cinema in a different way.
And so he used 16mm film and cameras and projectors.
And so one of the things that was incredibly present when I

(40:04):
experienced line describing a cone for the first time is the
sound of the machine. It makes it, you know, it has
that sound of the projector of analog cinema.
So the the projectors in cinemaswere behind, were up there in a
little room behind glass, a verythick glass because they were

(40:27):
very noisy. And so you're experiencing
something that you don't feel inthis exhibition, which is that
you are looking at the mechanicsof a great of, of the, of the
machine that created a great deal of your culture until the

(40:48):
70s. In that time, you're suddenly
looking in, inverting your relationship to it.
And instead of being in a dark room, sitting and letting the
image do everything for you and the machine do everything for
you, and just absorbing a story,you are suddenly moving.

(41:10):
You are looking at the device and you are playing with the
cone of lights. And it's very much connected
with the theories of the time. So Marshall Mcluhan, who in his
Seminole texts declared that themedium is the message.
You weren't using a technique inorder to get to something else.

(41:33):
The technique was the purpose ofyour use.
So if you are using electricity,you don't use electricity to get
to something else. You electricity is light and it
brings you light. And so the the the container and
the contained are exactly the same thing.

(41:54):
And so the machine that is bringing the image is actually
the message and not the the story that it is projecting.
And you need at that time there was this whole theory as well
that said, you know, pay attention to the spectacle of
the images that are surrounding you because they depend upon

(42:19):
this. And this is what is creating
your relationship to the world. So at the time, that line
describing a cone was a drawing on the wall with a projector
with light. But it was also a discourse
about the culture. And I, if I may say very quickly

(42:40):
that my PhD was about Solowitz and Douglas Hubler in connection
to a French inventor of the 19thcentury called Etienne Jules
Maher. And this man was fascinating
because he invented graphic recording machines or he
systematize them. He expanded their use.

(43:02):
They were invented in Germany. So he would take a picture of a
jump in its different stages andhe would produce a graphic
rendering of the jump. So you have the photo machine,
the photo or the the the cinematic image, and then you
have the graphic that went with it.
But he so now if you look up it's Engine Marie or Edward

(43:24):
Muybridge, you're going to say they're artists and they were
amazing. Who are these geniuses?
But actually, let's forget Muybridge.
It's Angel Marie was a scientist.
And So what he was doing is thathe was not interested in the
beauty of the image that he didn't find beautiful.
By the way, he didn't consider them beautiful and he wasn't

(43:45):
interested in the image as it represents reality.
He then would use a technique toextract the movement, so he
would make these graphic renderings of the movement and
he would discard the photo itself with the person in the

(44:05):
different stages of the jump or whatever movement it was.
So he had the capacity of inventing cinema.
At a certain point he fell out with George de Mini, who was his
assistant who wanted to create these moving images and show
them to people. And Maher said why?
Why? I know what reality looks like.
What I want is to use it to dissect movement and understand

(44:29):
it. I'm not interested in something
that replicates what I already see.
And in the 70s you reconnect with this scientific stunts, but
in a cultural dissection of the culture that eventually got
interested in the moving image as it represents the world and

(44:50):
not the graphic rendering that it could have become.
So it's really interesting to see that that's work is very,
very deep into that era. And then when new technologies
appear, which were kind of what dragged him again into his
artistic practice, things are completely different.

(45:10):
They're not noisy, they're not smelly, they don't need
cigarette smoke, and they createa completely different
environment. And it's interesting how you
describe it because you don't have that presence of the
machine as much, right? How do?
You ideally just have this line slowly building on, on the

(45:32):
opposite of the code. Then you know there is a
technicality, but you don't see the machinery.
You don't it, it's all about it's, I think the title of the
exhibition is brilliant. It's solid light.
That's what it is about. It's about touching the light,
what it is and and despite this conceptual, you know, way he

(45:58):
works and his practice, which isvery pure and which is you
really go in depth and he's he'sgoing slowly and he's building
all these things. You end up in an environment
where you don't feel the machineyou are that that's why I loved
in that exhibition is once you settle, then the first one is

(46:20):
about going through the this kind of solid light of like a
glass and you go through that and you hear the noise and you
have the aids and and suddenly Ijust felt I was reconnecting
with the environment. There is something very
environmental about that and that's brings back to the 70s
also. It's what you can see how

(46:43):
fragile is our world. You know, it's just all these
little particles. It's nothing, but it's what
makes us. And that's when the magic
happens. I think it's, it's you
understand that you are dust yourself and you are part of the
universe and everything is invisible.
But yet you can see it. You know, it makes, I think

(47:03):
that's the main thing it makes invisible visible.
And that's a movie in a way. And you are in that movie.
And that's where I completely broke.
I was like, Oh my God, this is so beautiful.
Then that's kind of the effect and and some there was two or
three people talking on the corner and that really annoyed

(47:24):
me. And they were somewhere just
breathing and you're like, just go away.
I'm in my universe. And then in the other
installation, the people are important because they cut the
light. Then they are, they are then the
the the that's the first one is a cone and then the second one
where I went was the one which is this it it's all about

(47:49):
arabesque. It's it's quite an ellipse and
then the it's very in the round.I don't know the name of that
one. Is it doubling back or face to
face? So the the works that he has
doubling back face to face and split second mirror which is
from 2018. So doubling back is from 2003.

(48:12):
I think that's doubling back. Yeah, I think.
Because and that's all the Arabs.
Yeah, yeah. And then that's where I went
second. And because it's it's all in in,
in that kind of yeah, Arabs line.
Basically it's. Kind of like the Infinity.
Symbol. Yes, exactly.
And now you are in a very different well, I was in a very
different spirit because he I wear skirts or dresses and it's

(48:37):
like the the the the helm of a of a dress in a way.
And you start to want to, I wanted to dance, you know, it
brings a lot of joy because it'sall in the round and it's
twirling and you want to catch and take that light.
And that was very playful, this one.
And then the the third one I went to and that's where I

(48:59):
really settled was, I think faceto face where you have you have
a screen in the middle, then onecone hit a screen and the the
other cone hit the other side. And then you catch in a
landscape in a way, bringing back to the first movie, the the
light is all, it's really a cone.

(49:21):
You are in that cone. And then you, I felt I was like,
in the universe, you are in The Big Bang basically.
And you can go in and out and you really see the smoke.
And then I sat down and I saw people going through and that
was really where the magic happened.
And there is a concept which I think he talks about, of

(49:45):
slowness. And for me, that's the second
very important part of his work.You know, there's something
environmental about it. And then the second thing is the
slowness. He makes you stop and he makes
you take your time. And it's very, very steady.

(50:05):
The, you know, it's the movie isnot too long.
It's not 3 hours, but it's not 5minutes.
It's just 20 minutes, very time.And he, he has this effect of
slowing and slowing and staying.And I think people are staying a
long time. And I stayed, I don't know how
long it, it felt like infinite. I'm quite a quickie.

(50:26):
Normally when I go to exhibition, I can zoom in, but
I'm, I'm quick And there I just,I just stand still for a long
time. And that's a success.
That's where you are. That for me, that's becomes
really a work about it. It really takes you.
What was your feeling going through it?

(50:50):
Maybe because of my interest in Mahe and this phenomenon that I
think is our phenomenon at the moment, which is all the images
we're looking at, our digital, and behind them there's a code,
There's an abstract mesh of symbols and codes and lines and
graphics that we're not aware of, but all the images we're

(51:11):
looking at are made of that and it's engine.
Mahe showed us that all movementin strength is translatable into
those codes. And Mahe also had to wait until
we invented computers for his imagery and his invention to
work fully, because only computer can calculate records

(51:32):
and archive all the information that you gather when you recall
movement. So in some ways he started
something that was then pursued by digital, by computing and by
coding, by algorithms and by themathematics behind computers.
And Mccool the same thing. He reconnected with technology.

(51:53):
And I find it really interestingthat the the atmosphere he
creates is so connected to the technologies we're using
nowadays. But it's kind of showing both.
He's showing the Ixels drawing and making something that was
rogrammed by someone who knows how to do that.

(52:16):
They were drawn by him, and thenthey're created in the space, in
a very specific located relationship with you as a body
and with your imagination and with your own culture, your own
background, your own physical. If you're in a wheelchair,
you're going to your head's going to cut through the cone.

(52:36):
If you're a child, you're going to experience it differently.
It roots you. It roots you in your own body
and suddenly with the universe. And it is such a beautiful
experience, that kind of solipsistic presence of the
projection. And the machine that's behind it
has this kind of passive wisdom almost that is conveyed through

(53:03):
the machine. And I'm really interested in AI
at the moment and the metaverse and everything that it's doing
and what we're doing with it. And I think that there is
something that we can learn frommachines.
I think machines have a kind of presence in the way they learn
from us. And there's a lot of fiction out

(53:27):
there about that. And we're living exactly the
opposite. We're at in the hands of
Zuckerberg and Musk and who are reducing machines to
manipulative, creepy creatures. And then you have artists who
are creating machines that can live with us and can teach us
about time and can teach us about our own bodies through

(53:49):
difference. And I think that was kind of, it
is so timely. You, like we said, he's in his
late 70s, and yet I think he hasthis affinity with machines that
I find really beautiful and thatI find really hopeful as well.
Then on to pick up on what you said.

(54:09):
Then there's three things which are interesting where where I
just want to add something. Only three.
That I can't remember then in the relation with the others, I
was pretty alone then I wanted my loneliness.
I wanted the universe to belong to me.

(54:30):
I wanted that's what I wanted the cocoon.
And you know, you were in a verydifferent experience because it
was like a party and people werejumping around and experiencing
these in a more playful where McCall talks about, he says his
work a lot about people, the encounter, which I didn't really

(54:54):
understand because I was like, no, it's about you and your
perception. And I think with your
experience, I understand better.And I think he's interested in
how people are getting in the space and how people are looking
at the others, how you invade your own space.
And that's part of his work. And he talks about that the.

(55:15):
First thing I thought was friendships and couples were
born in this space. OK, but I not for me, but
clearly. And, and that's part of his
practice. And then the other thing is
about the slowness. And he also speaks about that
and I really experience it for myself.
And I loved it. And he, a journalist asked him

(55:37):
about a cell phone because of course, you know, it's so
beautiful. People love to take selfies.
And there is a photo of his workwhere everyone is looking at the
cone and someone is taking a selfie, which is so today, but
the the the curator was asking him and he was like, Oh yeah,

(55:57):
made me cringe a little bit at the beginning.
And but then he he comes to terms with it because he's happy
people, people are taking selfies.
It, you know, it's, it has its silliness.
But in his practice, he sinks that help people to stay longer.
And then that that kind of helpshim with slowing down

(56:20):
everything. And I thought that's very
interesting how he has integrating integrated in his
mind and his in his practice, the way society is behaving.
He didn't like it, but then now he sees it as something
interesting, which which I like because of course you want to

(56:42):
take selfies there, but you know, do you want to do that or
not? You know, it's it's because it's
a space made for that. And I think Tate, of course, is
playing on that. And the sad thing I wanted to
mention in what you you said is Daisy experience, which is very
strong. And then as a curator or, you

(57:02):
know, someone who looks at the exhibition, there's a whole
aspect of his practice which is,I think very pure and very slow.
And it takes one thing very seriously.
And then there's a drawing aspect.
And then you have the film aspect.

(57:24):
And then you have the, is it a sculpture or is it what is a
sculpture? And then you have also, it's
quite architectural. You know, the space is
important. And when you look at his work,
there's a lot of things around his work, drawing, film,
sculpture, happening, immersive.Where do you put him?

(57:47):
And then that's very interesting, but that's all very
intellectual, while his work I think is is very tactile and
very simple in the way you interact with it.
Then I'm interested in that dynamic of, and then the first
room is all about that, this very technical drawing, very
dry. And then you have the experience

(58:07):
and did you feel that dynamic and does that interest you as a
curator? Yeah, it's such a good question
and we did mention that in the beginning.
I'm more interested in the way he interacts with new
technologies and what it says about how we're living in the

(58:29):
world with them. Because the whole question.
And that's why it was so interesting to go back to that
moment in my emerging career at the time.
I was so young, 25 years ago, you know, I was 24.
And I remember being excited by the intellectual aspect of it
and by the rhetoric of is it film?

(58:52):
Is it conceptual? Is it a drawing?
Is it sculpture? Is it cinema?
And now I find that it's all of it and.
It is. I think that's a conclusion.
It is. Right.
And the fact that there's drawing in there and graphic
design, I'm preaching to my own choir, obviously, as artistic

(59:13):
director of drawing. Now, I think that drawing has
that incredibly proteaic form ofconnecting languages.
The line is there. He did draw.
He studied graphic design. He also studied photography, and

(59:33):
for me, the idea of drawing and technology is very connected.
I think that that's kind of is the axis in some ways, but it
doesn't make it about that. It's very Renaissance in some
ways because the drawing in the Renaissance was the father of
all arts. So it was the patriarch and but
it disappeared into the masterpiece.

(59:54):
You didn't see a painting by or a sculpture by Michelangelo and
think, oh, drawing. But for the artist it was the
most important skill. So he also is very classical in
that, in those terms that excites me as someone who likes
to think about things. So personally, obviously, I will
think about. The dynamics of the languages

(01:00:18):
that are, are being used. But in terms of genres, I find
that conversation quite old. And I think it's, it's, it's
about the passion of the artist.So sometimes you talk to an
artist who's making videos and they tell you, for me, painting

(01:00:38):
is the the, the, the guiding light of my practice.
And you take it and you listen and you think, OK, that's
interesting and it helps you carry that work with you and,
and enter entering it. But in your experience of the
work, it doesn't really matter because it's surpasses whatever

(01:01:01):
technicality the artist is dealing with.
Once you've experienced the work, it's interesting to know
all these things and to revisit the work.
Exactly. There is different layers and I
see more like layers than something you have to put
together. And then if you are into
architecture, then you might study that side of his work.
And if you are into drawing, youmight look at the drawing he.

(01:01:23):
Does say that the architecture doesn't interest him, but you
keep talking about it, so that'syour relationship to it, which
is valid. And I think you're right, there
is something with the architecture there that he seems
to be uninterested in. Then there's one thing I would
like to speak about and, and which is intriguing for me when

(01:01:47):
I look at his work, when I thinkof his work and, you know, not
when I was dead, I didn't reallyknow what was the year and when
they were made. And actually it was really, you
know, very surprised they were so early because for me, in the
last maybe 10 years, 10 to 15 years, we've seen more and more

(01:02:10):
immersive works for different reasons.
I think museum are very happy tohave that because I engage the
audience in a different way that, you know, it's, it's
different to I think a museum before you used to walk in, you
have to make an effort, look, understand, read.
If you're an immersive work, it's very different.

(01:02:30):
And we've seen more and more of that.
And then in the even in the commercial world, we've seen
more of that because you've got some team lab, for example,
which is this, I don't know there.
I think it's an association between technology and artist.
And they create this super mega environment with movies of

(01:02:52):
flowers falling and they're incredible to to experience.
I found them a little bit empty,but they are really incredible.
And then I think pace is behind that and it's called super blue.
And then to pay for the installation, you and the making
of the installation, they sell tickets.

(01:03:13):
Then it becomes in between art and commercial.
And then you have also a new thing which has emerged, which
is called I think the City of the Lights where you have
classic blue chip like Van Gogh,Orkney, Estonard, Medigliani.
And they kind of put in motion their work, which is, you know,

(01:03:38):
when you look at them, you know,maybe you're going to be
disappointed when you look at the work itself compared to the
experience you can have even in in USA they did an exhibition of
1874, the first Impressionist exhibition.
And there was the exhibition andnext door there was the full on
experimental immersive experience.

(01:04:02):
And and McCall is in that field.But in a way he has stayed very
pure to his practice. And he could, you know, you say,
Oh yeah, he's very into technology, but he has taken
technology in a very, very, veryselective way, which only serves
him and very carefully. And that I found very beautiful.

(01:04:23):
And that I found in a very courageous to not just fall for
things because it's easy. Technology is explosing, We're
exploring. And it's not.
It's like, OK, what is importantfor me?
What works. Yeah.
And as a curator, what do you think of all this new immersive

(01:04:43):
works? And where do you place my call
in that? Well, I think that there's two
different things, which is artists who are now exploring
new technologies and immersive technologies.
And I, when you were talking about immersive environments, I
was thinking, oh, but that's a very 70s thing.

(01:05:04):
Think La Monte, Young, Tanya Muro.
So many people who created thesechambers sealed my rails in in
Brazil. Julia Park.
Yeah, Julio Park. You know, Julio Park, maybe I
don't. Know Julio?
Yeah, Julio. Right, so there it's a very 70s
thing that was very connected with meditation, altered states,

(01:05:29):
psychedelics, drug induced altered states, etcetera.
So and the mind is a drug in in some ways and and getting there
through music or through a a stable sound like the ohm of
meditation. All of that was in those
installations. And Mccool also comes from

(01:05:53):
there. You know, there's there's this
idea of suddenly the cinema is merging with a potentially much
more heightened space of experience.
And Q to now where you have these technologies and that's
where it is very interesting because Mccool came at the end

(01:06:15):
of the technology and kind of dried it out and expanded it in
its elemental quality. Whereas now you have a new
technology emerging. You're not coming to the end of
the metaverse and thinking, I'm going to, I'm, I'm going to
invert this. We're now experimenting with it.

(01:06:36):
And it's the task of the artiststo come and say, OK, I am not
going to be manipulated by this.I'm going to manipulate it and
I'm going to work with it and see where it I can take it as
opposed to where it can take me or collaborate with it.
So you have. And I urge you to, dear

(01:06:59):
listener, if you haven't listened to my interview with
Auron Descalera and Alfredo Camerotti called Will AI Kill
the Exhibition Star? Do it because we talk a lot
about these things. And we talk about artists who
are doing poetry, we're doing drawing, we're doing music with
AI or sound installations with AI, which are not what you would

(01:07:23):
think. Spaces where you forget about
yourself, like in cinema, and suddenly you're so taken by what
you're seeing that it becomes entertainment.
I think you're drawing the line between a real metaphysical
experience of the artwork and entertainment where you're where
it's just escapism and which is fine and.

(01:07:44):
I I don't know is it? Really not against it.
Is that acceptable? But I think the landscape is
changing. And Mccoy's anchor before that.
And I really like the way he's threading very carefully on that
entertainment, not entertainment.
And the the creator, I don't know why they chose to show him.

(01:08:04):
But at the same time, at Tate, you have another exhibition
which echoes very well my, my, my call, which I yeah, it's
called Electrical Dreams. And it's kind of discovering all
the technology in the 60s and 70s and it works very well.
And it's very important to see it with my colon.

(01:08:25):
And it's, it's the, the what they've done at Ted is super
interesting and it's really worth seeing both.
I don't want to dwell into that.Maybe that's another episode,
but that's really a good compliment.
That's great that you say that, because I was thinking about
another answer to your question,which is that one of the things

(01:08:47):
that McCall has discussed in an an article for tape papers is
that line describing a cone is becoming damaged.
So the film is not how it was inthe beginning.
So it has specks of light. And he says that he loves that.
He loves the fact that the film.Is.

(01:09:09):
Used has aged and as cellular asit happens with celluloid, it's
kind of becoming like a sort of a starry night kind of thing.
It's not as black as the digital, he says.
The digital files will remain unchanged.
They're not going to age like celluloid is aging.

(01:09:30):
And so there's two possibilitiesfor beyond his time, let's say.
So the curator interviewing him asked over the scholar.
I don't know who, I can't remember who was asked him.
So what is your decision regarding light line describing
a cone? Will you let it die or will you

(01:09:51):
accept to have it transferred onto a digital file?
And so he said, I'm very lucky because I can decide this
myself. I want line describing a cone to
be what it is and I would acceptto have it transferred onto a

(01:10:14):
digital file as it is so aged with the specs of light and with
a very imprecise line. So he says that the line is not
is not precise. If you look at it carefully,
it's not like the Digital 1, so it's not like the post 2000
works where the line is perfect.It's not razor sharp.
It's not razor sharp. What he is willing to do is do a

(01:10:37):
line describing a cone 2 point O, which would be the version of
that work in digital form, and it's two different works.
So for him, there is no, there'sa completely different aspect to

(01:10:57):
his works and a different connection to technology to what
it is an immersive experience. And you're right in pointing out
the entertainment side of the Van Gogh exhibition, for
example, where suddenly you are experiencing his colors, his

(01:11:19):
palettes moving about, which I'mabsolutely not against.
I think it's great. I think it's amazing that you
get to somehow be in the the mind and the perception of the
artist, because when you're making a painting is the exact
reverse of when you're experiencing a painting.

(01:11:40):
You're in the material, you're in the material aspect of it.
Of course, that immersive experience will not give you the
smell of the paint, will not give you the touch, will not
give you the concentration of the making of the color,
whatever. But it may allow you to be,
especially knowing that Van Gogh's mental health was

(01:12:04):
incredibly affected. He had visions, and he seems to,
he seemed to have synesthesia and he was taking medication
that kind of turned everything yellow for him.
So that perception was his own perception.
And like Kusama, the same thing.Why do these artists create

(01:12:26):
these immersive environments? Kusama, you know, has OCD, if
I'm not mistaken. I mean, she has this kind of
obsessive compulsive behavior orcompulsive behaviors.
She interned herself into a mental health capacity.
So facility. So there's these altered states

(01:12:47):
that maybe can help you go into those states in the easier
because don't forget Michelle took mescaline.
So many artists and and and musicians were under the
influence in the 70s. I just don't want them to
replace the experience of the work, but I think they can be.

(01:13:11):
It's like watching a film. I now I find myself filming
paintings and it really enjoyingthat experience because I
noticed they don't. When I watch documentaries about
painters I enjoy so much being so close because you can't now
you have alarms. Like you can't get close to
paintings but you can with a camera.

(01:13:34):
Is it still the painting? Who cares in some ways if it's
giving you something and if it'sdoing you good and creating a
different experience than that of watching an influencer
selling weight loss tea on Instagram?

(01:13:54):
Yeah, yeah. You can have many forms and I
think you know where we're going.
It's all about that, that Now I think the question is for some
museum is how do they want the audience to experience a museum?
And you don't want to transform a museum as a kind of
entertainment park. You know that says a fine line

(01:14:16):
and but you also want your audience to come.
Then I think that's that's more the role of the director and the
creator to really think how you know how want how much you want
to push the boundaries for this very big kind of city of the
Lumiere where you enhance everything great.
But they I found as a as a modern art.

(01:14:38):
If I say especially it's, it's, I'm just a little bit worried
that, you know, when you see thereal thing, you'll get
disappointed because if you keephenancing when you go first you
have to make an effort when you look at things.
And then also, you know, it's dusty, it's smaller, the colours
are faded over time. When this works, you know by

(01:15:00):
Vongo Monet or you know they areold, they are 150 years old and
and then are they going to be disappointing in the flesh?
There is also this movement now towards in a lot of younger
artists, towards a real contact with materials, with Earth, with

(01:15:21):
the pencil, because if there's two people who grew up in this
technology will be sick of it, you know, it will be too much.
It will be too, too, I think, too.
What's the words to to availableto it it it's?

(01:15:43):
I think like always, you you. You want something else?
Yeah, but you rediscover the roots.
You know, I think every generation does that.
And going back to the, you know,they did that in the 70s also,
you know, looking at at, you know, when MACO was looking at
fire and water and air in a verysimple concept.

(01:16:03):
Exactly. And light and it's all about the
light, right? I have one final question
because we must go, we have to go.
I wanted to give this conversation to us something
completely different, but it wasit's always such a joy to talk
with you that we've of course weimprovised.
But I wanted to ask you, so Anthony McCall is one of those

(01:16:25):
artists that we can call the onetrick pony, right?
He does. And because collectors, when you
talk to collectors, people who buy art, they're always
concerned with this idea. A lot of them are concerned with
this idea of novelty. Like, oh, this artist is always
doing the same thing. Oh, this is exhibition is the
same thing they did before. So it it is a thing, isn't it?

(01:16:47):
To kind of realize that this artist not only is A1 trick
pony, but he also was absent fora long time from the art world.
What do you make of that? Is that a problem, as you know,
maybe from the market perspective, from your
perspective? And what do we expect from
artists and what is an artistic career?

(01:17:09):
What is it? Is it problematic?
Well, lots of question in one questions.
Well, first, in the case of Anthony McCall, I haven't spoken
to the to these galleries, but Iwould think, you know, he's not
what we call a commercial artistand people who will buy his

(01:17:30):
work, maybe he can buy a drawing, but then that would be
in a very specific collection because you need to know the
work to buy the kind of back works and otherwise you will buy
the installation, which then youneed to be an institution.
Then first as a, you know, pure commercial artist is in a

(01:17:50):
special category, which which isyeah, and you know, he's more an
artist you will show unlimited or you would do a, you know, you
will take the whole gallery withan installation.
Then that's already puts him in a different category.
So Unlimited is a section of an art fair called Art Basel where

(01:18:13):
you expose monumental works. It's a huge warehouse where
galleries galleries who are participating in the fair, in
their booths, they can propose amajor big monumental artwork.
Sorry, just a parenthesis for those who don't know.
Then that's on the commercial side.
Now on the really the the carrier.

(01:18:33):
Every artist is different and some artists, their practice is
to renew themselves a lot. Sometime when I go and see a
retrospective, you might walk out and say, Oh my God, he's
quite repetitive. And, and even some very big
artist, you're like the retrospective kind of killed him

(01:18:55):
a little bit because he's, he's found no, but sometime an artist
find a kind of a cosy corner andthat's kind of for me, what I
call a trademark. And that's where you lose
interest in my calls case. Look, you know, when I hear you
telling about his life and and his practice, there is a

(01:19:19):
slowness about it and something very careful, which is maybe due
to, you know, the fact that, youknow, he couldn't set his work
or the the landscape has changed.
It might just not be on his own factor.
But actually that plays in his favour because suddenly you turn

(01:19:40):
your head and you realise he's been so true to his own
practice, to his own research, and the slowness has integrated
this, you know, work, which is then it's very admirable and
it's very pure and it's very real.
And then that goes well with hisbody of work then.

(01:20:02):
And that doesn't make him less interesting in a way.
And why not? You can create just one
important work of art in your life and it's OK.
You know who said you have to create 5000?
You know, some artists are aboutperfection and there is
something very precise and perfectionist about his work.

(01:20:29):
Then I'm not, I don't know, I'm not really puzzled about that.
I was more wondering about him. I was like, what do you do in
between? You know, you need to have some
nerves to, to, to wait, big nerves because life goes on.
People ask you need money. You know, it's, it's how do you

(01:20:50):
survive all these years? Yeah, I mean, he was a graphic
designer, so I think. That wasn't.
I didn't. I think work probably got in the
way as well of his practice, right?
But yeah, it's interesting when you say, 'cause I think there's
always this expectation of artists to have a certain kind
of career and to be the, we havea romantic idea of the artist as

(01:21:18):
this filter through which the world goes through that will
deliver a, a, a vision of the world.
And the job of the artist is to go across time and keep on
filtering and keep on producing images that will come from them,
but also kind of reflect us in the world.

(01:21:39):
And there's kind of their job. That's what they're here to do.
And there's an expectation of a continuation in time.
But creativity is so much more than that.
And it's your worry about McCallis because you know, so many
artists and you know how hard itis to have a creative output
that makes sense to you and alsomake a living in parallel to

(01:22:03):
that. So it, it it's so interesting
that your mind went there and, and, and thought about his
survival. You know, how did he make it?
You know, how did he live? How was I, was he OK?
And you had this worry about him, which I find so moving and
so interesting. Just wanted to add that he does
have drawings. There's, there's these beautiful

(01:22:23):
drawings of his. I'm not sure he's prolific in,
in that sense, but I guess if you're a private collector, I
guess you could still have a photo or a drawing of his.
But as you say, he's more of an institutional artist.
He will be, you know, in, in presented in museum collections

(01:22:44):
and private foundations and, andthe like for sure.
So liberty, I think we've come to the end of it.
It was really a pleasure to see that exhibition and I will urge
anyone to go and see it and experience it for themselves
because it's, it's, he's a beautiful artist.

(01:23:06):
The, the, the, the five work 5 works presented are beautiful
and they really add to the discourse.
And then if you have time, go also and see Electric Dreams,
which is finishing in a month, Ithink because they are really
explaining they're the roots of what's coming basically.

(01:23:27):
And I thought it was fascinatingthat they could put that
together. Thank you so much for staying
with us, for sticking with us. It was such a pleasure.
Thank you so much, Liberty for coming back to the podcast.
It was, as ever, a pleasure to to exchange views with you and
to all of you out there. Have a great, great couple of

(01:23:50):
weeks and we will be with you very, very soon.
Thank you so much, Liberty. Thank you, Joanna.
Bye. Bye.
Bye bye everyone, take care.