GLASS HAS BEEN Larry Bell’s muse since the 1960s, when he emerged as part of the West Coast minimalists, who reimagined sculpture as something shaped by a viewer’s interaction. Crafting cubes with transfixing smoky textures and, later, more colorful hues, he expressed how glass transforms light, changing with each angle or time of day.
A central figure in California’s Light and Space movement, he is, at eighty-five, having a landmark moment with three concurrent exhibitions: two in New York and one at the San Antonio Art Museum through January 4, 2026. Each spotlights how he is still innovating with material in deceptively simple forms.
At Manhattan’s Judd Foundation—the former home and studio of his late friend Donald Judd—Irresponsible Iridescence, open until January 31, 2026, centers on his 2024 “Solar Studies” series. Bell uses almost entirely solar power in his New Mexico studio, with these two-dimensional collages featuring vaporous layers of metallic and acrylic film, iterating on his longtime use of vacuum coating processes.
Meanwhile, uptown in Madison Square Park, Improvisations in the Park offers a new way to experience his luminous works across the seasons, as fall leaves and snow gather around blue glass boxes and squirrels bound between sleek red forms. On view through March 15, 2026, the exhibition consists of two new, six- and eight-foot-tall standing wall sculptures alongside four existing works. Additionally, two never-before-exhibited works will sit alongside two existing works.
“Every day with the changing weather and light, the pieces dynamically shift, making for many repeat views,” says Denise Markonish, chief curator at Madison Square Park. “It’s been great to watch people stop, even in busy moments, and appreciate the wonder they produce.”
