PARIS.- The exhibition “The Field” gathers for the first time in Europe1 the works of Larry Bell (Chicago, 1939) and Liam Everett (Rochester–New York, 1973), two American artists separated by several decades but driven by the same exploration of light as a phenomenon at the same time physical, perceptual and metaphysical.

From the 1960s, Larry Bell, a pioneer of minimal art and research on the materiality of glass, has been leading an in-depth investigation on the optic properties of light. His sculptures in dichroic glass, partially covered in reflecting metallic films, play with the effects of refraction, transparency and opacity. Varying with the spectator’s viewpoint and the light conditions, the volumes seem to metamorphose, revealing a light sculpted, diffracted, trapped. In Larry Bell’s work, the field is no longer that of the canvas but that of the sculptural and architectural space redefined by the light.

For Liam Everett, painting is a territory of experimentation where layers of transparency, texture, and exposure to sunlight, alcohol, salt, or—as in this case sand, alter and transform the surface, as if subjecting the material to a series of trials. In his most recent works, Liam Everett extends his practice into a dialogue with quantum biology, particularly the vital role of ultraviolet light on living organisms, whether plant or animal. Drawing on data from medical and scientific imaging (MRI scans, spectroscopy, ultra- high-resolution images of atoms and cell structures captured through electron microscopes), his abstract compositions explore a form of the infra-visible: what light carries beyond its luminescence, as a vector of information and vital communica- tion, especially in the form of photons emitted by the sun. This new series simultaneously points to the pictorial structure and to the electromagnetic field traversed by light, where the human body becomes a surface of reception and, metaphorically, the painting itself becomes a field—a space for capturing or isolating the information contained in light.

Larry Bell and Liam Everett’s works have in common to plot a sensitive cartography of luminous fields: visual fields, energetic fields, interpretation fields. Though Liam Everett sees painting as an organism traversed by invisible forces, Larry Bell understands it as a perceptual environment, an interface between space and gaze. Both invite us to rethink our relation to light as an acting, living energy traversing bodies and spaces as much as images.

— Christian Alandete & Emma-Charlotte Gobry-Laurencin

This exhibition is organised in collaboration with Hauser & Wirth gallery.

1. An exhibition gathering those two artists took place at Altman Siegel Gallery in San Francisco last spring.

Born in 1939 in Chicago (Illinois), LARRY BELL lives and works in Venice (Califonia) and Taos (New Mexico).

Larry Bell is one of the most renowned and influential artists to emerge from the Los Angeles art scene of the 1960s. Known foremost for his refined surface treatment of glass and explorations of light, reflection and shadow through the material, Larry Bell’s significant oeuvre extends from painting and works on paper to glass sculptures and furniture design. Bell’s understanding of the potential of glass and light allows him to expand visual and physical fields of perception, and his sculptures to surpass traditional bounds of the medium. He has said: “Although we tend to think of glass as a window, it is a solid liquid that has at once three distinctive qualities: it reflects light, it absorbs light, and it transmits light all at the same time.”

Born in 1973 in Rochester (New York), LIAM EVERETT lives and works in Sebastopol (California).

His work has been included in exhibi-tions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA; the Biennale of Painting, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, USA; San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, USA and CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, USA.

Liam Everett is the recipient of the SECA Art Award at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA (2017), the Richard Diebenkorn Teaching Fellowship at the San Francisco Art Institute, USA (2013) and the San Francisco Artadia Award, USA (2013). Liam Everett’s work is included in significant international public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA; Dallas Museum of Art, USA; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes, France; Fondation Carmignac, France; Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker, Norway; and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, USA.