Today the Albright-Knox Art Gallery opened a new exhibition by artist Anthony McCall. The exhibition, titled Anthony McCall: Dark Rooms, Solid Light, is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in North America and occupies the museum’s entire 1905 Building. The exhibition has been made possible through the generosity of M&T Bank.

The exhibition includes five enormous, immersive “solid-light” installations, created by a combination of projected light and a thin mist that viewers are invited to move around and through to experience the sculptural properties of light. Evolving and changing over time, the installations encourage an extended, interactive experience. These works are connected to the artist’s legendary film Line Describing a Cone from 1973. The exhibition also includes several performance films and works on paper from 1970 to the present, including drawings, photographs, and installation documentation.

“We are thrilled to organize Anthony McCall’s first solo museum exhibition in North America,” said Albright-Knox Chief Curator Cathleen Chaffee. “This show continues the museum’s remarkable legacy of working with living artists at the forefront of their fields, and we are delighted to share McCall's striking and engaging installations and other projects with the people of Buffalo and Western New York. We are also extremely grateful for the support of M&T Bank in not only making this exhibition possible but also for their steadfast commitment to cultural endeavors throughout the region.”
 
A Members’ Opening will take place Friday, August 16, from 5 to 7 pm, with a free public opening to follow from 7 to 9 pm. At 7:15 pm in the Auditorium, the artist will give a presentation about the exhibition and discuss his work with Chief Curator Cathleen Chaffee and Curator of Public Art Aaron Ott. For a full list of exhibition-related events and programming, please visit www.albrightknox.org/anthonymccall. 
 
McCall lives and works in Manhattan. Occupying a space between sculpture, cinema, and drawing, his work’s historical importance has been recognized in such exhibitions Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–77, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2001–2); X-Screen: Film Installations and Actions in the 1960s and 1970s, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Austria (2003–4); The Expanded Eye, Kunsthaus Zurich (2006); Beyond Cinema: The Art of Projection, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2006–7); and The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC (2008); and On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010–11). In the past year he has mounted solo exhibitions at The Hepworth Wakefield, England; Pioneer Works, Brooklyn; and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York.

Additional support for this exhibition has been provided by Frey Electric Construction Company and Sean Kelly Gallery. Equipment and technical support provided in part by Advantage TI. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s exhibition program is generously supported by The Seymour H. Knox Foundation, Inc.

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