Marc Selwyn Fine Art is pleased to announce the gallery’s third exhibition of work by Barry Le Va. Although a member of the founding generation of Minimalism and Conceptualism, Le Va remains relevant today, especially in his work’s relationship to process, performance and installation. The exhibition will feature a special installation in the project gallery, Shattered Off Center, 1968-71/2020. 

Le Va pushed the boundaries of sculpture beyond the pedestal by using unconventional and industrial materials and distributing them by dropping, throwing, blowing, slashing or crushing them in the space. He highlights the tension between chaos and order with works which contain both premeditated elements and outcomes produced by chance. In this work, Le Va stacks multiple glass sheets which are then shattered at intervals with a sledgehammer. The randomness of the resulting cracks and shards contrasts with the angular edges of the glass, while situational and environmental variables result in a unique, site-specific installation. 

According to Klaus Kertess, “The violence of many of these works has been compared to the violence endemic to their time – from Vietnam to Watts to Kent State. However, Le Va’s scattering of matter was not politically motivated in the narrow sense. […] Le Va was testing (atomizing) the limits of sculpture and pushing the unclearly marked border between creation and destruction dangerously close to the latter.” 

Born in Long Beach, California, Barry Le Va received his BFA from Otis Art Institute in 1967. Le Va has exhibited internationally, and his works are in the collection of Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others. Currently, Le Va is the subject of a year long survey at Dia:Beacon, New York on view through November 2020. He lives in New York City.