This box marks the very beginning of Larry Bell’s move in 1965 to the entire simplification of the form of his works, eliminating design and artifice in favor of light and space. The work was acquired thanks to the artist’s directing Aardt’s founder to the owners of the work, who he understood wished to sell, indicating that as best he could recall he made at most 10 of this form during 1965 and that this box, which he had originally sold to Ileana Sonnabend, may in fact be the first. Each box is numbered by year and sequence inside the metal frame, so while further confirmation of its priority among the 1965 works is possible, there is no pressing reason to disassemble it for that purpose, given the confirmation of the year of fabrication in an artist’s certificate held by the foundation. The first show of these boxes appears to have been at Ferus Gallery, probably in late 1965 given the following review in the January 1966 issue of ArtForum, of which this is an excerpt:
“These new pieces are all simple glass cubes of varying size, up to about two feet. Each is made of six panes of glass coated with a colored metallic material that, depending on the position of the dominant source of light, either reflects or transmits light. The six panes are held together by metal channels finished in either gold or chrome to relate comfortably to the color of the glass. What seems to be attempted in these works is to add a new element to the vocabulary of sculptural space, that is, the use of light, not as an embellishment (as in the late “Cubi” series of David Smith) or as a mechanical device (as in the work of Moholy-Nagy, Archipenko, the Constructivists, or, recently, of Dan Flavin) but as a subject inherent in the space of the sculpture and of the viewing experience. One sees in these cubes, when they become transparent, a kind of weight and solidity that is greater than when the piece appears completely closed and reflective. The interaction between the energy of light outside of the box and that which is contained or transmitted through the glass, the subtle changes between transparency when the cube seems filled with a substance like Jell-O, to the complete blocking of the surface allowing only one’s reflection to be thrown back (one is tempted at this point to cup his hands and peer inside) involves a whole new series of relationships with which sculpture must deal.”
