Larry Bell: Smoke On The Bottom

This exhibition brings together works from Larry 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 (1989-2014), Bell’s largest standing wall work to date.

Since 1968, Bell has been developing his series of freestanding glass wall sculptures in varying scales and configurations. 6 x 6 An Improvisation is the culmination of this series. First shown at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas in 2014, it consists of 40 panels, each measuring 72 x 72 cm or approximately 6ft square, a measurement relational to the artist’s own height. Bell has reconfigured the panels for White Cube Bermondsey, creating what he terms an ‘Improvisation’, combining clear glass, grey glass and glass coated with Inconel (a nickel/chrome alloy) which results in it becoming, to variable degrees, reflective. Arranged in right angle pairs, some that are inverted or doubled up, the sculpture forms a labyrinthine series of spaces that reflects and refracts the interior architecture of the gallery. Highly dramatic and visually complex, 6 x 6 An Improvisation subverts the viewers spatial comprehension through a layered convergence of hues and densities, while maintaining an illusion of volume.