Harwood Museum of Art, Taos
June 9 – October 7, 2018
The Harwood Museum of Art in Taos is gearing up for a large-scale exhibition of local luminary Larry Bell’s work. The show, titled Hocus, Focus and 12, is curated by Gus Foster, Taos photographer and Bell’s friend and collaborator. Highlights of the exhibition include works from Bell’s Venice Fog series, which utilize a thin film on glass to produce an ethereal effect, rarely seen maquettes for glass sculptures, works on paper, mobiles, and an eclectic selection of Bell’s collection of twelve-string guitars. The Harwood exhibition will occupy four of the museum’s galleries and will include rarely seen Vapor Drawings and seminal works from the Fractions series (1996-2004). Bell was born in Chicago and grew up in California, where he retains a studio. He studied with Robert Irwin at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles during the 1950s—an art school that would become Cal Arts. After coming to Taos in 1973, Bell opened a studio which he has operated ever since. Considered one of the leading American abstract artists, known for his large-scale, glass geometric sculptures, he has received awards by the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Recently his work has been shown at Hauser and Wirth in Los Angeles, Boston’s Museum of Fine Art, and the Cultural Center of Belgrade.
