SAN ANTONIO, TX.- Larry Bell: Improvisations celebrates the artistic achievements of one of the most influential and renowned artists who emerged from the Los Angeles art scene in the 1960s. An experimental artist from the start, Larry Bell, born in Chicago in 1939, has dedicated his career to exploring themes of light and surface by transforming industrial materials into physical realities. The exhibition, originated by the Phoenix Art Museum, includes works created between 1969 and 2024 in various media ranging from intimately scaled collages to Bell’s signature floating glass cubes and monumental glass wall installations. The selected works demonstrate Bell’s ongoing innovations with industrial materials and processes.

In the 1960s Bell discovered a vacuum deposition technique using a tank, or chamber, that allowed him to transfer thin film deposits onto glass panes. The resulting sculptures and installations enhance the elusiveness of space by allowing light to pass through and feature metallic coatings that create subtle optical shifts. Bell has since been using light as his medium to focus on how different surfaces reflect, absorb, and transmit light.

Visitors may recall that during the recent Still Brewing Art exhibition a collections care area demonstrated how Museum staff examine objects to inform conservation, storage, and display. The Dilemma of Griffin’s Cat, a large-scale installation that SAMA commissioned Bell to create for the Museum’s grand opening in 1981, was one of those artworks. The artist and representatives from his studio traveled to SAMA in summer 2023 and consulted with our team. Larry Bell: Improvisations presents an exciting opportunity to collaborate with the Bell studio to install the work again in a new context.

Larry Bell: Improvisations is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Rachel Sadvary Zebro, associate curator of collections at Phoenix Art Museum.