REVISITING ANTHONY MCCALL'S 1975 LIGHT SHOW

In 1975, British-born New York avant-garde filmmaker Anthony McCall set up a conceptual “film” installation in Manhattan’s old Idea Warehouse that didn’t actually use light or a projector. Instead, he covered the windows with white paper, hung a light at the center of the empty room and left it that way for 24 hours -- viewers were free to come and go throughout the night.

Now, the Brooklyn film collective Light Industry and the Dia Art Foundation are re-creating McCall’s Long Film for Ambient Light at Dia:Chelsea on the work’s 36th anniversary, June 18-19, 2011. It starts at noon, but swing by anytime and you won’t miss out -- as the artist himself has said, “the piece of paper on the wall is as much a duration as the projection of a film. Its only difference is in its immediate relationship to our perception.”

The project follows a screening of McCall’s 30-minute Line Describing a Cone (1973)and three other related works,which were the final events to take place at Light Industry’s downtown Brooklyn location. In the future, catch Light Industry, along with Triple Canopy and The Public School, at its new ground-floor space at 155 Freeman Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

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