The sestante (sextant) is an instrument of revelation, used at sea to establish position; in giving this show such a title Alberto Burri seemed to be locating his position vis-à-vis painting. The vast former navy yard held 17 large works in acrylic on Celotex, each about 97 by 136 inches. The structure of the yard is a sort of large nave, and the paintings were arranged in regular succession in side “chapels”; sixteen were hung on a wall over three hundred feet long, their spacing punctuated by buttresses that framed them as in niches, while a seventeenth hung on the shorter entrance wall.

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