British artist Anthony McCall’s exhibition at Luciana Brito in São Paulo suggests a retrospective of an artist who returned to art-making in the last decade after an over-20 year hiatus. McCall’s reemergence is marked by revisiting and further developing what began as his “solid light” films made in the early 1970s: installations of hazy, darkened rooms with slow-moving beams of light from 16mm projectors.

Meeting You Halfway II, 2009, courtesy of Luciana Brito Galeria, São Paulo

But time is a funny thing. The layers of cinema’s material evolution, and certain artworks produced since, have a temporal gravity that presses down on these works, effecting what their form implies. Today they appear as a precursor to works by artists like James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson that harness, expose and manipulate natural phenomena as a way to create phenomenological experiences. The exhibition has smartly included drawings and studies that reveal a motivation of cinematic deconstruction in addition to their phenomenological leanings, allowing the viewer to ponder the meanwhile.

Line Describing a Cone sketch, 1973, courtesy of Luciana Brito Galeria, São Paulo

McCall’s seminal 1973 piece, Line Describing a Cone is a deconstructive act examining the conditions of film. Distilling the very material of film – projected light and duration – the reductive piece begins with a beam of light, a point, that over the course of half an hour draws a circle on the surface of a wall. An ephemeral, mesmerizing play of optics occurs as flowing particles of haze are drawn out of the shadows, illuminated by the light beam headed towards the screen, thus creating a 3-dimensional sculpture. There is a 4th dimension at work here too, time. We are at the intersection of cinema and sculpture. Experiencing this piece under new conditions, notably, without viewing the work as originally conceived as a filmic audience – from a specific set time, beginning to end – contributes to the shift in emphasis of the work as a cinematic deconstruction to a phenomenological experience.

Meeting You Halfway (II), 2009, (installation view, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York), courtesy of Luciana Brito Galeria, São Paulo

The 2009 Meeting You Halfway (II) typifies this evolution. As the title suggests, the viewer, the body that meditates the experience of the work, and social interaction come into focus. Our understanding through sensation, which was certainly present in Line Describing a Cone now becomes the subject. Here, experiencing this work in Brazil, the legacy of Lygia Pape and Lygia Clark seep up as a more visceral logic arises. For both light installations in the exhibition, we are beckoned to appease our curiosities, to place our bodies within the body of the work, being and experiencing a multitude – cinema, sculpture, drawing and performance.

You and I, Horizontal, 2007 (installation view, Serpentine Gallery, London), courtesy of Luciana Brito Galeria, São Paulo

McCall’s exhibition Installations and Works on Paper will run through June 18th at Luciana Brito Galeria.

Courtesy of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

The first floor of the two-floor exhibit consists of clusters of rooms comprised of a simple wooden framework supporting large projection screens.  Each room allows for the viewer to stand in front of projected light, thus causing the light to fracture into colored shadows on the wall.  These projections, like much of Eliasson’s work, causes the viewer to re-examine even the most common familiarities, such as light, with renewed appreciation and wonder.  Eliasson is particularly interested in how we understand, see, and experience space. Multiple Shadow House does not disappoint on this level. The user negotiates and constructs his or her own surroundings while experiencing subtleties of color, thrill of participation, and magic of science.

The theme of perception of visual imagery and viewer involvement is continued upstairs in Intangible Afterimage Star (2008).  Six spotlights project geometrical forms in magenta, blue, yellow, green, magenta, and turquoise onto a wall, layering and intersecting.  As explained in the press release, “the intense projections fade in and out, and complimentary afterimages stay on the visitor’s retina and appear to multiply the color compositions.  As a result, the film is only partially produced by the spotlight’s projection; the rest is contributed by the viewer.”

Also upstairs is a stunning collection of what appear to be studies in color, sequences, and shape done in watercolor and pencil on paper.  Minimal and intimate, these stationary works are a refreshing change from the rest of the exhibition.  Configured in sequences, the watercolors use ellipses and circles as narrative exercises on the perception of space and movement.  Another piece, Colour Experiment no. 3, is a circular oil painting that at first glance appears to be a basic study in color or a large color wheel.  However, the painting is actually an expansion of the traditional model of a color wheel, wherein each of the 360 degrees is painted in one color and corresponds to its complementary afterimage located directly across from itself.

Eliasson has cited the work of close friend Einar Thorstein, a philosopher, scientist, and engineer, as a constant source of his visual vocabulary.  He has found inspiration in Thorstein’s spatial ideas such as geodesic domes, fivefold symmetries, spiral spheres, towers and pavilions, the golden ratio, and kaleidoscopes.  Eliasson uses these concepts to create works like Multiple Shadow House which exist as experiences more than material objects.  Presented via transparent means of constructions, these experiences illustrate the nature of perception-based stimulation as well as the artist’s ability to manipulate the experience.

Current solo exhibitions for Eliasson include Olafur Eliasson: Your Chance Encounter at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan and Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia.