September 15, 1996
The new space in Art et Industrie insists on retrospect, grand shows and great works - or at least, large, really big shows arnd really impressive works. And if your work runs to outside, all the better for there is an outside. Sitting out there as part of just what the gallery needs is a truly huge bronze piece by Larry Bell, Stickiman # 12, 1996. Where would it go? Where would it find a home, space, breathing room but at a public site, a large private estate, someplace large and open. It will go on the road and then to Cleveland in the future. Where it has found a home for the moment is in Art et Industrie's outside space, and there it must sit with the back to the wall. And so there it sits, a vast object that has come at the end of years of evolution, reappraisal, new work and great technical deployment. And as is rarely the case, the great outside piece looks even better than the room of great work inside: all, give or take, bronze calligraphy, stick men, round, and running, a few in place and all apiece. Not only are the sculptures good, but Bell also makes some very good paintings.
In fact, the paintings or, canvas could easily be shown alone, away from the sculpture but Larry Bell has always been slotted as a sculptor if one of mixed mediums and odd intention; the paintings with the bronze work are clearly a part of the scheme, aspects of the direction but alone none would miss the three dimensional work for the paintings are not large working drawings but independent and elegant statements, swift, sure, and from this corner really more interesting than die bronze, And the bronze is various, elegant, a body of work that feels like a parade marching on, a few resting by the side, some cavorting, the great white room alive with stickmen - and enhanced by the painted calligraphy that has as does all great calligraphy, a substance more than lines.
And in all the work. the line is predominant and so meant to be but the result is various. If you like one Stickman you need not like them all. And if stickmen do not appeal the paintings should. And if nothing attracts it has been, for this is attractive work, Complex arid simple, the technique submerged in the images - art matters most not industry - and who cares about "computer generated calligraphy that was the genesis for this project" since what matters is that Bell has turned ideas into action, material into art and as a bonus given us some very elegant work on the walls as lagniappe.