In the late 1970s McCall moved away from art. After a 20-year break, he resumed his career with a renewed sense of urgency and presented Line Describing a Cone at the landmark exhibition Into the Light at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 2001. New digital design software, high-quality video projectors and improved technical conditions offered McCall new possibilities to revisit and expand on his works from the 1970s.
In the first part Anthony McCall: Solid Light Films and Other Works (1971–2014) a selection of McCall's drawings, photographs, documentation of his early performances, maquettes and pages from his notebooks offer an introduction to the "roots" of the solid light films. The second part traces the gradual development from his solid light films from Line Describing a Cone (1973) and Four Projected Movements (1975) to the more recent digital installations Doubling Back (2003) and Face to Face II (2013), McCall's first large scale installation using floating, double-sided screens. Finally, the exhibition also presents Traveling Wave (1972/2013). This work holds a unique position in McCall's œuvre as it is purely sound-based.