Larry Bell

Larry Bell has had a long and varied career, and also influential enough to land himself on the cover of The Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Born in 1939 in Chicago, Illinois, and now based in Toas, New Mexico and Venice, California, his earliest work were, like Donald Judd, Abstract-expressionist paintings.

In the 1960s, Bell began making some of his most recognisable works: Cube structures that sit on transparent plinths. Three of these works were featured in the influential 1966 minimalist exhibition Primary Structures, which also featured the work of Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Ellsworth Kelly, Carl Andre and Sol LeWitt (amongst others).

I often see people disregard the relationship between the plinth and a sculpture, and furthermore the plinth’s sculptural presence. It’s always refreshing to look at Bell’s work, because he brings an awareness to the plinth by making it part of the work itself.

  1. Geecee
    28.12.10 16:39

    Larry Bell is my favorite Minimalist. The first piece of his I saw I had an amazing experience. The piece was a vacuum plated semi-mirrored cube. When I walked up to it for a split second visually I was both inside and out of the cube. In that moment before my brain made sense of it I had an out of body experience. It was quite amazing.

  2. pieterjan
    29.12.10 00:15

    One of the best works I discovered last year at Art Brussels.
    I totally didn’t know about him & thank you for reminding me!

  3. Adrian
    29.12.10 09:13

    @Geecee – wow, that sounds incredible. I would love to experience that work one day.

    @pieterjan – my pleasure.

  4. Edi
    01.03.11 07:24

    Absolutely stunning and thank you for writing about him.

  5. george arnold
    29.08.11 06:09

    Larry Bell’s work is so beautiful, thanks for this post.