Light as a Creative Axis

Anthony McCall. Light becomes the true protagonist and sculptural material.

Line Describing a Cone, from 1973, explores the properties of light and the nature of film. Screened for the first time in Fylkingen, Stockholm, on 30 August 1973, it was one of the pioneering avant-garde works blurring the boundaries between visual arts and cinema. The film installation begins as a point of light projected on a black background. For half an hour, the point moves until it draws a circle of light and, at the same time, a conical but empty form, like the surface or outer layer of a cone. As the viewer moves through the light, and their viewpoint changes, so their experience of the projection also changes. A solid beam of light that overrides the laws of physics.

Pedro Torres. Light structures an immersive poetics around the sun.

‘It’s hot. It’s very hot. Even though the sun is cooling down. And we get burnt by the rays that slip through our fingers while we look up.’ Pedro Torres’ installation features this star that structurally traverses our lives. Produced in 2020, House of the Sun focuses, from different perspectives, on this astronomic object and source of life on Earth that is the sun. ‘I’m very interested in the subject of time, in trying to understand time. And when I begin these investigations, there is one fundamental aspect, at once object and instrument, that is the light.’ Torres brings together science and visual poetry in an installation of multiple semantic and optical layers. An immersive solar environment and a landscape of photons that travel through space until they reach our vision.

Eugènia Balcells. Light shapes the work and transcends the limits of perception.

Eugènia Balcells and Alexandra Laudo discuss and review some of Balcells’ most significant works, from the beginning of her career to the present day. They talk about the intersection between art and science, about light and spectra, about the consumption of images and ways of seeing, and about virtuality and screens.

Jorge Ribalta. Light, both natural and reflected, reveals the theatricality of modern leisure.

‘Sur l’herbe or On the Grass is a series made over four consecutive years almost on the same day, at the same time and in the same place, in the courtyard between MACBA and the CCCB, covered in artificial grass to house one of the stages of the Sonar festival. The series focuses on the audience at the festival, taken at sunset, when an optical effect occurs in which the CCCB building acts as a solar screen, reflecting on the audience to give the impression of a flashbulb or an artificial light. This only occurs at this time of year and at this precise time of day. The title of the series is obviously an allusion to Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, from 1863, a period that is very important in terms of the archaeology of photography that I practise.’ Ribalta shares both his work process and the pleasure associated with artistic and knowledge production. It is an enjoyment related to being in the street and in nature, in the open air and in the sun: ‘the pleasure of Impressionism’, as he says, but also associated with the subsequent laboratory process.

Richard Meier and Renny Logan. Light is present as a pure material, capable of penetrating forms, structuring the entire artistic experience.

The interview with Richard Meier about the MACBA highlights his architectural philosophy, in which light is fundamental. Meier emphasises the use of white in the design, not only for its aesthetic value but also for its ability to reflect natural light, creating a constant interplay of light and shadow that energises the space. The museum is designed to maximise this luminosity, with large spaces and overhead lighting that allow for a visual connection with the surroundings and enhance the art experience. For Meier, light isn’t merely a functional element; it’s an essential tool that sculpts and defines the architecture, transforming the MACBA into a living and ever-changing space.