The Reggia di Venaria continues its prestigious collaboration between the Consortium of Royal Residences of Savoy and the Tate of London, hosting in the rooms of the Citroniera the exhibition Anthony McCall. Solid Light, an exhibition event featuring some of the British artist’s most emblematic installations.
The “light sculptures” of Anthony McCall (born St. Paul’s Cray in 1946) establish an intense dialogue with the architecture of Filippo Juvarra, directly engaging the visitor in experiences that contemplate light and expand and surpass traditional art cinema performances. The exhibition, which is part of La Venaria Into the Light, the extensive program focused on the theme of light that will run through 2026, with initiatives, exhibitions and activities designed for a wide and diverse audience, is included in the Reggia’s tour route, accessible with a dedicated ticket and included in all admission tickets, and can also be visited during evening hours on weekends, until 11 p.m., as part of Summer Evenings at the Reggia.
Open to the public until August 31, 2025, the exhibition is produced in collaboration with Tate, UK, and is curated by Gregor Muir (Director of the Collection at Tate Modern), in collaboration with Andrew de Brún (Assistant Curator of International Art at Tate Modern) and Lauren Buckley (Senior Project Curator, International Partnerships, Tate). The exhibition design is by architect Giovanni Tironi.
Anthony McCall’s new forms of expression take the form of spectacular and dramatic beams of light - linear, curvilinear and conical - that trace visual blade-like volumes in space, traversing the darkened rooms of the Juvarra-designed Citroniera.
The exhibition opens with McCall’s early experiments in the 1960s and 1970s, documented through drawings, photographs and notebooks that bear witness to his research into geometric forms. Prominent among these early works is the 1972 film Landscape for Fire, in which the artist staged a performance at dusk, arranging small fires in a geometric grid in an open field in North Weald, England: as the light fades, the grid of fires abstracts from the landscape, creating a field of light, which in turn becomes almost sculptural in the film’s projection.
At the heart of the exhibition are four “solid light works” installations in which beams of light, generated by projectors and made visible through the presence of non-toxic smoke, create volumetric forms that the audience can physically walk through. In Line describing a cone (1973), a slowly moving projection draws a volumetrically defined conical shape in space. In Doubling back (2003), the concavities and convexities of projected lines create a dynamic space that includes and excludes the viewer. In Face to face IV (2013), two opposing projections evoke the feeling of an encounter between two people. In Split second mirror I (2018), the use of a mirror refracts and multiplies sculptural forms of light, transforming the perception of space.
These works push the viewer to become an active part of the work, inviting them to move around and within the projections. McCall’s installations blur the boundaries between film, sculpture and drawing, generating a visual language capable of captivating and engaging through light.
For all info: lavenaria.it
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| Reggia di Venaria continues collaboration with Tate UK with Anthony McCall's light sculptures |
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