It's hard not to think of Le Corbusier's words when encountering the work of Californian artist Larry Bell. He's best known for creating walls of glass; interlocking planes, that reflect and refract, marshalling light. He plays a game with surface and texture, coating his panes with metal of various thickness. They become part window, part mirror, part prism; both sculpture and screen.
For all their Euclidean and architectural exactitude, Bell's pieces are surprisingly dynamic. They move with the sun, their transparencies and reflectivities transform according to the time of day.
Bell is at the heart of the Light and Space movement – a divergent branch of minimalism that originated in California (where else? All that sun, all that horizon). Since 1968, Bell has been developing his glass wall sculptures in varying scales and configurations. This spring, White Cube Bermondsey presents a major retrospective, Smoke on the Bottom.
The show will bring together work from Bell’s extensive career, from early paintings and works on paper to recent collages, centring on the large-scale installation 6 x 6 An Improvisation – Bell's largest standing work, made up of more than 40 planes.
Just don't walk into any of them by mistake.
What | Larry Bell, White Cube Bermondsey |
Where | White Cube Bermondsey, 144-152 Bermondsey Street , London, SE1 3TQ | MAP |
Nearest tube | Bermondsey (underground) |
When |
28 Apr 17 – 18 Jun 17, Closed Mondays, Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 6pm Sunday 12pm - 6pm |
Price | £Free |
Website | Click here for more information |