Larry Bell
VFGY9
Like many of Larry Bell’s works, VFGY9 deals primarily with the viewer’s experience of sight. The blocks resemble a stone carving, or slabs of wood shaped into a simple organic composition whose overall sheen is varied through a thin layer of aluminum vapor. Yet, the real material of Bell’s piece is actually light, formed within the viewer’s eye into masses as present as stone.
Often associated with the Light and Space movement—which as also includes James Turrell, Robert Irwin, and John McCracken—Larry Bell has been an important figure and influence in the West Coast contemporary art scene since the early 1960s. Less interested in the material, concrete qualities of the object than in heightening awareness of the environment in which it is situated, his abstract geometric sculptural works possess a certain mystical aspect and engage the viewer in a myriad of perceptual experiences.