Larry Bell's turbulent light

New York,

Larry Bell reached recognition in the mid -sixties by the hand of works, carried out in diverse techniques, which had in common the use of light. Born in Chicago in 1939, by then he was part of the vibrant creative scene of Los Angeles, which appreciated his refined treatment of glass, his management of reflexes and shadows and his desire to expand the visual and physical fields of perception, usually in the field of sculpture, but also in the design of furniture, painting and drawing.

Since 1970 he moved his study by Venice to New Mexico, carrying out a coating system in his own workshop that allows him to deposit fine metal films on glass surfaces, taking advantage of a little known technique, developed for aeronautics; Thus creates very particular works, halfway between crafts and industrial processes. In that material you find wide possibilities: Although we usually think of glass as a window, it is a solid liquid that has three distinctive qualities: it reflects light, absorbs and transmits it, all at the same time.

Bell kept friendship, throughout his life, with Donald Judd: both were part of an exhibition that almost marked time (“Primary Structures”, in the New York Jewish Museum in 1966) and the minimalist was the first artist to acquire work of this author, specifically a glass bucket collected with chrome bands, which lacks title and date in 1970; It has been permanently installed on the third floor of the Judd Foundation in New York.

On September 29, this center will open “irresponsible Iridescence”, a sample dedicated to Bell’s recent work: it will consist of twelve pieces belonging to its series Solar Studythat go beyond pure abstraction to propose two -dimensional translation of the light on the surfaces.

The artist began working on them in 2024, in which he was a notable turn regarding his previous production: he appropriated very contemporary technologies to light almost one hundred compositions during a brief period in Taos (New Mexico). Although he was not only the only one who did it: Sometimes, hopefully, the work is created alone. I am only responsible for turning on and off the team. The results of the use of the latter become autonomous. In other words, I can find a narrative interpretation in the order of disposal of the created surfaces. Thus, these projects combine the alien and the intimate, intuition and the machine.

Solar Studyultimately, it is a continuation of its previous glass coatings and a recovery of the collage techniques that you used in Drawings steam and Mirage Works: It has tried to improvise and create works spontaneously, exploring with greater immediacy how the superficial qualities of the materials, the colors and their dimensions affect the perception, the light, the space and the sensation.

They can also contemplate pieces in mixed technique executed with aluminum and silicon monoxide, and mounted on canvas, which deepen the concepts of their series Church studies (2016-2018). Inspired by the architecture of another of its workshops, which it has in Venice, where there was an ancient temple of Christian science, those compositions incorporate a molded framework, deeper into the upper edge and less in the lower one.

Both series refer to architecture and the place of creation, a concept of the latter that Bell associates with memory and intuition, and that values for the multiple experiences that lead.

Two other US exhibitions pay tribute to Bell this fall, under the title of “Improvisations”: in Madison Square Park and in San Antonio Museum of Art. The latter has been raised as a retrospective with works in all formats: from its collages to monumental facilities.