Larry Bell in his studio. Photo: Jordan Riefe for Observer

A little bit of L.A. lands in the heart of Manhattan this fall as sculptor Larry Bell mounts his largest public art project to date in six locations across Madison Square Park. “Improvisations in the Park” includes the longtime Angeleno’s large-scale vibrantly colored glass cubes, Pacific Red II (at the 2017 Whitney Biennial), and Fourth of July in Venice Fog, as well as two new works, Cantaloupe but Honeydew and Red Eye II. Other works include Frankly Purple and Blues from Aspen.

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“I used improvisation as needed,” Bell tells Observer about the show, which is on from September 30 through March 15. “Everything is based on right angles. And it is possible to combine different pieces of workable scale together and create new things from existing things. Each piece can be a thousand different pieces. Glass has the potential to absorb, transmit and reflect light. It’s the key to the whole thing.”

At 85 years old, Bell is the youngest member of the “Cool School” of the 1960s, a cadre of L.A.-based artists who exhibited at West Hollywood’s Ferus Gallery. Founded by artist Ed Kienholz and curator Walter Hopps (whose nickname for Bell was Ben Luxe, ‘son of light’), Ferus served as a platform for artists like Ed Ruscha, Billy Al Bengston, Ed Moses and John Altoon.

“I see him now and then when I go to L.A.,” Bell, who now lives in New Mexico, says of his old classmate, Ed Ruscha, one of the few other Cool Schoolers........

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