30 January 2015 // Simcha van Helden //Rotterdam

//WEEKLY ART REPORT

Larry Bell is one of the most prominent and influential artists to have come out of the Los Angeles art scene of the 1960s. Bell works mainly with glass and industrial techniques to achieve effects of transparency and reflection. His works contain luminously beautiful series of collage works as well as three-dimensional kinetic sculptures. Light Knots begin their lives as sheets of Mylar film, which Larry cuts, folds, and coats with vaporized metallic particles. Hung from the ceiling with monofilament, the nearly weightless works sway with the slightest air movement. Their iridescent layers shift and shimmer in the light, reflecting the surrounding environment. Like the collages, the appearance of the Light Knots shifts dramatically depending on the ambient light and the viewer’s position towards them. According to Larry, “the colors you see are not pigments, they are what is known as interference color…the same as a little gas on a puddle of water at a filling station.” The surfaces of the Knots transmit, reflect, and absorb light, continuing the artist’s lifelong fascination with the nature of perception, and how to manipulate its properties.



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