Stepping into the dark and cool Anthony McCall exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof was a relief on a sticky Berlin lunchtime. Black walls, dense black carpet, the enormous old train station fog-filled with gently buzzing 'haze machines'. Then the projections: beamed pure white lines from high above describing slowly shifting shapes on the floor, the coned light paths marbling in the moving air.
The photograph above is dreadful, but I decided in the end that was appropriate; there's no way to evoke the atmosphere of this work through a photograph. Even in a stubborn, anti-theatrical mindset this work is impressive. Such simple means, condensed and deepened over half a lifetime yields such rich and complex results, but only in that they stand so effectively as drawing, sculpture and film all at the same time, and wow you and your body whilst you make up your mind. Knowing that the earliest of the 'solid light' works, from 1973, were made 'physical' only with the dust and cigarette smoke that filled the room might lead a sceptical mind to viewing the newer work and environments as stage-y and simulated. Of course, it is, but the pleasure and satisfaction of walking through takes the mind instantly elsewhere, to emerge again afterwards full, like you've watched a beautiful movie alone and want to tell somebody about it.
