Saturday, November 22, 2025
Three Slide Works by Anthony McCall
Light Industry, 361 Stagg Street, Suite 407, Brooklyn
On view from noon to 8pm, with a performance at 6pm.
Miniature in Black and White, Anthony McCall, continuous projection of eighty-one 35mm slides, 1972
Slit-Scan, Anthony McCall, continuous projection of eighty-one 35mm slides, 1972
Streaks, Anthony McCall, performance with continuous projection of eighty-one 35mm slides, 1972
In the work of artist Anthony McCall one frequently encounters a cinema at or exceeding its definitional limits. One of his most iconic works, Line Describing a Cone, is a film, for instance, whose primary impression is sculptural; his Long Film for Ambient Light foregoes the typical mechanics of the medium altogether. Over the years we have presented these and other pieces by McCall at Light Industry, including his remarkable foray into collaborative essay films, Argument and Sigmund Freud's Dora.
It is therefore with great enthusiasm that we are hosting an exhibition of his early slide works, which have never before been presented together. Two works—Miniature in Black and White and Slit-Scan—will be on view throughout the day. Each is a limit case of its own: the former bringing projector and screen into the most intimate proximity, the latter testing the thresholds of legibility. In Slit-Scan, McCall presents the viewer with a single picture eighty-one times, except in every instance one sees only a horizontal sliver of the whole, the visible bar progressing down the otherwise obscured image with each movement of the slides. All three works shown at Light Industry entail the carousel advancing at maximum speed, providing an insistent staccato as the loop whirs round, and with it a kind of automatic soundtrack.
Streaks, a performance enacted only once before, will be staged at 6pm. Here a suite of handmade slides will be rearticulated and further abstracted by the physical movement of the projector itself, its beam arcing back and forth across the long wall of our theater as the performer moves in time with the rhythm of the machine.
This event is free, though donations are always appreciated. Please note that seating for the performance is limited. First-come, first-served.