Danese is pleased to announce its first exhibition of work by Larry Bell. The opening reception will be held from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 6, and the exhibition will continue through September 29.

In this exhibition, which consists of a number of Larry Bell’s signature glass cubes, the artist continues to explore the transitory nature of light and its interaction with three-dimensional form. The cubes are made of gray, clear, amber or blue glass, and their vaporous, mirror-like surfaces are coated with Inconel, a nickel-based alloy applied in a vacuum chamber. The concentration of this material determines the variation in color, tonality, transparency and reflective properties of the sculptures.

While Bell’s work is clearly associated with Minimalism and the geometric clarity and industrial manufacture of his work may partially justify this designation, Bell tends to reject the literal demands of this movement and teases the eye¹ with visual complexity. The cubes seem to float in mid-air on their clear, plexiglass bases. There is a Zen-like purity to these subtly colored, opalescent works, creating a kind of meditative architecture of illusion. ²

Larry Bell was born in Chicago in 1938. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles from 1957-59, where he studied with Robert Irwin. Bell began exhibiting at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles in the early 1960’s and became associated with some of the area’s most important movements of the time, including the sleek and highly refined works of the so-called “Finish Fetish” and “Light and Space” artists. These southern California artists were primarily concerned with technically advanced materials and their potential to challenge and extend the thresholds of perception. Larry Bell was included in MoMA’s celebrated exhibition The Responsive Eye, 1965, and in Primary Structures, 1966, the Jewish Museum’s landmark exhibition that defined the Minimalist movement. His work is included in major museum collections throughout the United States and abroad. Larry Bell currently lives and works in Taos, New Mexico and Venice, California.

For further information, please contact Carol Corey at 212/223-2227.

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