For five decades, British artist Anthony McCall has posited that light can behave in the same manner as sculpture; that a projected beam can have edges and convey volume and weight; that it can evoke solid structure, even in an empty room. For the autumn exhibition season, New York’s Sean Kelly Gallery has brought together three milestone works—Line Describing a Cone (1973), Skylight (2020), and the brand-new work Swarm (2026)—for “Anthony McCall: Solid Light, 1973, 2020, 2026,” the artist’s seventh solo show with the gallery.
The seminal Line Describing a Cone, on view for the first time with Sean Kelly, anchors the exhibition. Over the course of 30 minutes, a single line of projected light inches around into a full circle, progressively revealing a cone of hazy light. Visitors may feel compelled to circumvent the illuminated field, but they are free to move through it, creating a perceptual experience of moving through sculpture itself.
When the work was made, in the early 1970s, McCall essentially dissolved the line between cinema (think: film projectors), sculpture, and performance. Decades later, in a contemporary world saturated with screens, its physical presence still feels radical.
Skylight showcases the logical progression of the earlier work, using a vertical axis of light from above onto a plinth—a hallmark of traditional sculpture—forming a cone that viewers can approach. Paired with a score by composer and guitarist David Grubbs that evokes a passing storm, the piece is at once subtle and understated, while wholly immersive, felt as much as seen.
The works in the show trace McCall’s historic creative arc, and Swarm, the artist’s most recent work in the exhibition, starkly brings his practice to the present moment. Responding to the pervasive presence of the drone (an object of recreation and war), two rotating, conical volumes of light, accompanied by another of Grubbs’s soundscapes, create a sense of building intensity. Where the earlier works invite viewers to reflect on a single form, the constant motion of Swarm points to the ways technology has evolved and shaped our sense of space.
Taken together, the body of work on view suggests that McCall’s project has never been exclusively about light for its own sake, but instead the transformative moment where something typically intangible is given shape, duration, and sound—and how our bodies move through space. Half a century after McCall’s first major breakthrough, the questions he set out to explore remain as relevant as ever.
“Anthony McCall: Solid Light, 1973, 2020, 2026” is on view at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, through October 31, 2026.