NYC’s Madison Square Park has hosted excellent art commissions and exhibitions over the decades. For the ’25/’26 winter season, Larry Bell has installed six sculptures made of chromatic glass that form a visual conversation with the surrounding greenery and cityscape.
I visited Improvisations in the Park a few days after it opened, on a bright early fall morning. The park is still a lush shade of green and there’s lots of variation in light and shadow. With the sun ducking in and out of the surrounding buildings, the individual sculptures get moments of theatrical spotlighting. And when not directly illuminated, reflections make some of the works seemingly merge into the background. Bell’s works are visually strong but interact with their surroundings to amplify all the interesting shadow patterns, colors, and surrounding plant shapes.
These pieces will be interesting to check back on as the winter sets in. Especially if there’s snow. They’ll also be a welcome hit of color on the notoriously grey midwinter days in NYC.
Full Description
On view through March 15, 2026, Larry Bell’s Improvisations in the Park is the artist’s largest outdoor installation to date, occupying six lawns across Madison Square Park. For over seven decades, he has tirelessly experimented to create what he calls “improbable,” or wonder-filled, sculptures.
Bell began using glass in the 1960s, creating mirrored cubes atop clear Plexiglas bases. He is interested in glass because “it did three things that nothing else that I knew of did,” he recalls. “It transmitted light, it absorbed light, and it reflected light all at the same time.” By the mid 1960s Bell expanded the scale of his small cubes into six-by-eight-foot “Standing Walls” consisting of upright glass panels, situated on the ground, in various formations such as cubes, sails, and channels. He combines these forms with color, created either by fusing colored film inside of the glass like those at the park or using a vacuum process that adheres metal vapors to the surface, creating mirror-like effects.
In this exhibition, Bell’s love of play is clear as he often reconfigures the panels varying
“improvisations.” The combinations allow him to realize new experiences with light and color based on each site. This installation is no exception as the works on view will reflect the park’s shifting environmental conditions throughout the late fall, winter and early spring, as well as the light over the course of each day.
In the end, Improvisations in the Park amplifies the sensory relationship between light and glass that first piqued Bell’s interest; and he invites viewers to partake in a wondrous exploration of the material, while also witnessing Madison Square Park reflecting anew in the glassy surfaces.
Photos and Intro Text: Dave Pinter
Additional Description: Madison Square Park
