Beginning in 1966, Barry Le Va began making large sculptures that he termed “distributions,” referring to the scattered dispersion of the material with which he was working. On Center, On Edge Shatter Scatter–part of the Walker exhibition 75 Gifts for 75 Years–is created by shattering 13 sheets of glass (two at a time) with a sledge hammer. The action, here enacted by Walker senior registration technician David Bartley, takes place directly on the floor and is displayed as a site-specific work in situ. The sculpture belongs to an ongoing series of shatter pieces begun in 1968, in which Le Va takes a serial approach, and issues instructions and drawings for each iteration’s execution.
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