Curated by Alexis Lowry

Elegant disasters, Barry Le Va’s dispersals are often referred to as “scatter pieces,” though the term is misleading, given the meticulous planning that precedes them. Made of familiar but unorthodox materials such as felt, flour, broken glass, wooden dowels, ball bearings, and even meat cleavers, these pieces are typically delimited by the extent of a gallery’s walls. A spare, early flour work, Omitted Section of a Section Omitted, 1968–69, gamely butted up against the side of Bruce Nauman’s corridor when it first appeared in the Whitney’s generation-defining exhibition “Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials” in 1969. Dia:Beacon’s factory architecture will provide an expansive setting for this overdue survey of Le Va’s pieces from the ’60s, allowing his work to commune with that of many more-celebrated peers and revealing his significant contribution to the development of contemporary sculpture.

— Michael Ned Holte