Larry Bell at Kiyo Higashi - Los Angeles, California - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

In sum of two units large works at Kiyo Higashi, Larry Bell manipulated his familiar glass enclosings and their vaporous reflective surfaces into a meditative architecture of illusion. Conceived in the 1970 and related to large freestanding works he produc then, the ultimate parts of this exhibition seemed definitive of their kind. Bell created puts of four panels which he articulated in sum of two units of many possible configurations. Each 6-foot-square and half-inch-thick panel was vacuum coated with reflective particles in a gradation that ranged from translucent to completely reflective. Each was joined to another by means of a bead of adhesive silicon where their cutting sides met.

Bell installed the sum of two units independent L-shaped sets of 6 x 6 x 4 - AB 3 feet apart, in a sort of double chevron configuration. The stage of reflectivity moved from solid to transparent in individual set and the reverse in the other, which created a highly composite resonance of images. What gazeed like signature Bell cubes appeared to flutter just beyond the surface, as did the viewer, almost holographically, while the actually separate places seemed to be joined.

Bell established a labyrinth of visual experience: the viewer could penetrate the V-shaped corridor between the puts and see the panels dissolve into transparency. The experience recalled the sensation of standing in the shadow caused by the agency of a passing cloud: the simplicity of the cause was inversely proportional to the magnitude of the effect

In a smaller gallery, Bell installed sum of two units sets of panels to form a range that could be entered from sum of two units opposed corners, 6 x 6 x 4 - CD Viewed from outside, single the front panel was visible. Viewers saw alone this wall reflecting them and the wall and window behind them. The gradated coating ran from top to bottom upon one set, bottom to top upon the next. Both wall and viewer appeared to dematerialize at the middle horizontal At the corners, the viewer disappeared entirely and the piece looked to return to its elements: a construction of joined and unjoined glass walls.

In a small sweep at the rear, Bell installed a 20-inch cube (1992) upon a clear pedestal. It was selectively coated upon two adjacent sides and upon top. It seemed like an intimate play set inside a slightly larger individual a reading encouraged by the viewer's previous experience of the show's primary pieces.

Bell himself designed the gallery; its walls, windows and doors were intended to be its solitary ornaments, enhancing the elegant and quiet presentations for which the gallery is known.

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