In the early 1960s Larry Bell worked in a frame shop in Venice, California where he started to pick up off-cuts of glass and play around with them. He became fascinated by the edges of the glass shards, the way it simultaneously reflected and transmitted light. After working on various ways to include glass in his paintings Bell settled on the cube as the ideal form with which to explore his fascinations. Eventually investing in a vacuum coating machine allowed him to produce his own mirror effects. Bell became a leading figure in the LA art scene.
Bell discontinued making the cubes in the mid-eighties and concentrated his efforts on paintings and figurative sculptures. Now he has returned to the format with a new group of cubes made from colored glass and coated with Inconel an alloy with similar properties to stainless steel.
The exhibition at Jacobson Howard will also include paintings and works on paper made using the same vacuum coating process.