MALIBU, CA.- The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University is presenting Larry Bell: Pacific Red from January 21 – April 2, 2017.
Larry Bell was a founder of the California Light and Space movement in the 1960s. Since then he has pushed the boundaries of perception and technology in his on-going quest to explore light and vision. This new exhibition, Pacific Red, features a historical survey of his art from the late 1950s and 1960s as well as an exciting, new installation designed especially for the galleries of the Weisman Museum of Art.
Larry Bell’s work with glass arose from the incredible creative energy of the Los Angeles art scene in the 1960s. During this period of intense experimentation artists explored new non-art materials such as resin, acrylic, and fiberglass. Bell was one of the first to develop a radically new vocabulary of forms using glass. His glass cube sculptures of the early to mid-60s received national critical attention. They were seen as vital West Coast variants of Minimalism, as works that combined the structural rigor of Hard-Edge abstraction with the seductive transparency of the emerging Fetish-Finish and Light and Space movements. Bell’s role in shaping the art of our time was documented in the Getty Pacific Standard Time exhibition Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in 2011. Since then his international reputation has only continued to grow.
This exhibition at the Weisman Museum of Art is entitled Pacific Red. The Weisman is in Malibu, at the western edge of Los Angeles County. Sitting on the coast and facing the Pacific, Malibu has long been associated with beach culture, setting suns, and red skies. Pacific Red is Bell’s homage to a place he has visited for decades and that plays a key role in the mythology of California.
Bell’s installations make us question the reliability of what we see. His glass surfaces function both as mirrors and windows. We see through them but they also resist penetration by reflecting what’s outside them. By using layers of overlapping glass, he pushes the limits of sculpture by dissolving mass into perceptual phenomena. As the artist says, “My work is about the properties of light and the way it interacts with surfaces—it’s about volume and illusion. The sculpture does three things: It reflects light, transmits light, and absorbs light all at the same time.” This exhibition reveals how he uses his signature materials—glass, Mylar, paper, and industrial coatings—to push the boundaries of vision and perception.
Larry Bell (b. 1939) is a contemporary American artist and sculptor who was a founding member of the California Light and Space movement. In the late 50s he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and moved to Venice in 1959. Over the course of his 50-year career, Bell’s work has been shown at numerous museums and in public spaces in the United States and abroad. Today, his work is in major museums collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Tate Gallery, London, and many others. He currently lives and works in Taos, New Mexico, and maintains a studio in Venice, California.
Larry Bell: Pacific Red was curated by Michael Zakian, director of the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, in conjunction with the Frank Lloyd Gallery.
