Larry Bell’s Glass Cubes Illuminate Madison Square Park

The austere glass cubes for which Larry Bell is best known landed in New York City’s Madison Square Park this fall. Concurrently, a smaller show at the Judd Foundation showcases his lesser-known works on canvas, which Flavin Judd organized at his father’s art foundation in Soho.

Politically conservative, even corporate in aesthetic, Bell’s objects glow with an elegance that is sure to please his patrons and flatter their oversized, minimal spaces. This is art for boardrooms and private museums, but it’s still lovely to see; like so much art that emerged from the Light and Space movement, it represents the industrial flowering of the United States during the post-World War II era, and its large expanses of landscapes infused with the optimism of an ascendant American empire — one of the major works on display in the park is even titled “Fourth of July in Venice Fog” (2018).

In Madison Square Park, the artworks reflect the world around them, collecting leaves in the glass boxes, and providing a respite from the daily grind, while the works on canvas at the Judd Foundation, which use the same chemical processes as the sculptures, refract the life of Soho beyond the vitrines.

These all feel nostalgic, like they’re vestiges from another era. Yet, at the same time, they lure us in with an authenticity that meditates on those bygone aesthetics and how they relate to today. Like many of the artists represented by Hauser & Wirth, Bell is interested in money and legacy as much as ideas. And at the end of our lives, these feel like common concerns, particularly for those who have worked in isolation for decades.

During the press preview, Bell told Hyperallergic that he “never considered these pieces to be fit for outdoors.” Pointing out that each part is related to his physical body, whether the span of his arms or the height he could jump. That bodily connection makes the works personal in a way few other pieces from the Light and Space movement tend to be, and it makes them as much a mirror of ourselves and our corporeal realities as of one another.

To give you a better look at the shows, check out our video tour and brief chat with the artist.

Improvisations in the Park will be on view in Madison Square Park (between 23rd and 26th Streets, and Madison and Fifth Avenues in Manhattan) through to March 15, 2026, and it was initially curated by Brooke Kamin Rapaport, while being organized by Denise Markonish, Tom Reidy, and Tiera Ndlovu. Larry Bell: Irresponsible Iridescence continues at the Judd Foundation (101 Spring Street, Soho, Manhattan) until January 31, 2026, and has no curator listed.