Larry Bell Talks Spontaneous Improvisation

Larry Bell b. 1939, United States Follow +

In 2016, artist Larry Bell gave a talk in the Swire Properties Lounge at Art Basel in Hong Kong, where he described his work as a “spontaneous improvisation.”

It’s a disarming way to frame the pieces he’s best known for: slick glass cubes such as Pacific Red (2016), a trio of large reflective cubes shown in Hong Kong during the fair, and Pacific Red II (2017), a six-part glass sculpture included in that year’s Whitney Biennial. These works, with their insistence on right angles and calibrated light, have secured Bell’s place in the stories of both Minimalism and the West Coast Light and Space movement. Bell, however, is quick to resist the neatness of art-historical labels, insisting that his practice is driven less by allegiance to any “movement” than by an ongoing exploration of the hand’s sensuous engagement with materials. Viewed across six decades, his body of work reads as a sustained investigation into the self-contained and relational possibilities of hands-on experimentation.

Now based in Taos, New Mexico, with a studio still in Venice, California, the 77‑year‑old Bell carries an easy Californian cool—polite, relaxed, hat slouched low. Between 1957 and 1959, he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, counting Robert Irwin among his teachers and Ed Ruscha and Kenny Price among his friends. His early paintings leaned into Abstract Expressionism: abstract, often monochrome and geometric canvases that increasingly implied three-dimensional form. By 1959, he was embedding fragments of glass into his surfaces; soon after, the paintings gave way to glass constructions. Those experiments underpinned the cubes and panel sculptures that would come to define his reputation.

By 1963, Bell’s preoccupation with glass had led him to develop cube sculptures using vacuum deposition, coating clear glass with thin metallic films so that light itself seemed to become a sculptural medium. In 1968–69, he extended these investigations into scale and right angles with the “Standard Walls” series, a system of freestanding glass walls determined by the limits of his own body (the span of his arms, the height he could jump, and the maximum weight he could lift). Configured in endless permutations, these walls orchestrate shifting relations between object, space, and body; as in much of Bell’s work, the viewer is not an add-on but an integral component.

To stop at the glass cubes and walls, though, is to flatten the range of Bell’s practice. His experiments with paper, light, and industrial processes point to a disciplined curiosity that rarely rests. In 1978 he began the ongoing “Vapor Drawings,” extending his glass explorations by applying vaporised metal to paper, leaning into the spontaneity and chance effects of the process. In the early 1980s he turned to Mylar and laminate film for the “Mirage” works, producing shimmering fields of colour and light. From these, he developed the “Fractions,” a large series of three-by-three-inch gestural images made by running offcuts from the “Mirage” works through a laminate press so that heat and pressure release residues of paint and thin-film coating. These small, dense pieces loop back to his early Abstract Expressionist interests while remaining rooted in the technological methods he has refined over the years, encapsulating how six decades of accumulated knowledge sediment in his studio.

In conversation with Anna Dickie and Stephanie Bailey, Bell is clear-eyed about what all this adds up to: the works, he says, are evidence of his working process. Whether that evidence qualifies as “art” is a question he prefers to leave open—one for others.

SB: Your early work was formed within the tradition of Abstract Expressionist painting. Can you recall the moment you moved away from the canvas? What encouraged the break?

The imagery of the paint on the canvas became more organised until it was very hard-edged. When it was hard enough, it became sculptural and left the wall.

SB: Have you maintained a relationship to painting at all?

I guess that everything we do at any time—in our studio or in our studies—has a lasting effect on the way we think and continue to organise our thoughts. I consider my work to be evidence of my studies and the externalisation of a current thought. It is also about intuition, improvisation and spontaneity; these elements all impact the final result.

AD: In a talk during Art Basel in Hong Kong in 2016, you used the word ‘improbable’ to describe the creation of your work. Could you expand on this?

I have to sum it up by saying that by engaging the improbable, one creates credible tension.

AD: Another reference you have made in relation to your work is to note its relationship to literary influences.

Well actually, my favourite author is H G Wells. He wrote some extraordinary things. I relate to a lot of his characters and named some of my sculpture projects after some of the central characters in his books, because I was so moved by the strength of their conviction in who they were. Griffin is a central character in Wells’ novel The Invisible Man [1897]; he is a student at something called the Normal School of Science in London, and is very interested in the properties of light. He has a theory that it is possible to make a person disappear by a certain kind of re-alignment of molecules. He is not only made fun of by his fellow students, but also discouraged by his professors. He comes up with this formula before he tries it on himself. He also tries it on his landlady’s cat and the cat becomes invisible except for the pupils of his eyes—there are these two eyes walking around. What Griffin did was not only heroic because of his faith in his ability to do this thing, but also because no matter the resistance to it, he proceeded and in fact made himself invisible.

In a way, I related to Griffin as an artist: you make this commitment to do something. You spend all your money and all your energy on trying to develop something and even if it works, then possibly nobody will be interested in it. It could be that you are successful, but you might feel you failed.

It was this connection to these characters that made me interested in Wells.

AD: Is it Wells’ characters you relate to more than Wells himself?

It is Wells too. He published all these phenomenal books—The War of the Worlds [1953] and The Invisible Man—but when Wells was young, he actually started out as a journalist. He was asked about how he made the transition from journalist to successful novelist almost overnight. What Wells said back to the guy affected me profoundly: he said he thought it was better to make a series of striking—if unfinished—novels and so escape from journalism, rather than be forgotten while he elaborated a masterpiece.

AD: How does this translate into how you work?

All Wells wanted to do was write, get the stuff out and not worry about anything else. He trusted his work.

I repeat myself a great deal in the studio; it’s a bit like practising ballet. The evidence and outcome are different, but the activity to get there is often the same. I like finding a work routine that is sensuous.

AD: What do you mean by ‘sensuous’?

I want it to be intuitive. It is about the feeling of doing the work. I am addicted to the ‘hands-on’ sensuousness of the studio activities; I am addicted to making things. I don’t want to think too much about it. I am the guy who cranks it out for other people to decide if it is art or not.

AD: Your work has so much to do with exploring materials for their effects. Are there any materials out there right now that particularly interest you?

I do a lot of collage and surface investigations. I experiment with various papers and coat them with materials. I don’t want to alter the surface; I want to alter the way the light comes off that surface.

SB: You are considered one of the leading figures of the Light and Space movement, and you famously studied with Robert Irwin—among others—who is also considered a central figure in this movement. Could you talk about your relationship with Light and Space?

I have been accused of being part of the Light and Space movement and part of the Minimalist movement. I have never tried to be part of any movement.

Robert Irwin is the most charismatic person I have ever met. He was and is a great teacher. He has always followed his work!

I do not believe there is a Light and Space movement! There is light everywhere. There is space everywhere. There is surface everywhere. All we really see is the light reflected off surfaces, from a wall to an airborne molecule of water floating in space. If people are becoming more aware of the obvious, I guess that’s a good thing?

SB: Could you talk about your relationship with what you identify as the most common shape in civilised culture, the right angle?

The right angle is the most common element in civilised culture. My sculptural interests were affected by this element; it is everywhere all the time at once! It is in our peripheral vision constantly. It is a dynamic, constant influence on us and how we think. If anything, the right angle celebrates its impact on me as proven by the evidence of my studio activities.

SB: You have said that one of the greatest lessons you have learned through your work is to trust yourself. How might you describe this trust?

One has to believe in themselves at least enough to function through the day. Some of us suffer from depression which makes trust more difficult. Some of us have no place to go and some of us are too comfortable. Whatever the ‘place’ some will do it and some will not? I enjoy the work I do. I look forward to every day’s discoveries. The work is the teacher.

SB: What advice might you give an artist working today in terms of achieving a level of self-assurance when it comes to their work?

Keep the faith and keep on working. Things will play out, so long as you keep on working. But don’t forget to lighten up. Go for it, so long as you keep on working and making evidence of your work. What I produce is evidence of my work and I let other people decide if it is art.

AD: Is there a dream project for you?

The dream is to work until you die. The rest of it will take care of itself. —[O]

This Conversation is an amalgamation of two interviews with Larry Bell: one conducted in writing with Stephanie Bailey, and one conducted in person with Anna Dickie. The conversation has been edited with the permission of the artist.

Main image: Larry Bell. Courtesy Larry Bell Studio.