This selection of works by Walter De Maria—drawn primarily from Dia Art Foundation’s collection—presents small-scale objects that were mostly produced between 1961 and 1966. These works introduce viewers to the distinctive forms, techniques, and idiosyncratic imagery developed by the artist in the early years his career, when his practice was evolving in parallel with that of his Minimalist and Fluxus peers. Though intimate in scale, these objects anticipate many of the developments on view in De Maria’s more monumental installations, such as The New York Earth Room, The Lightning Field, and The Vertical Earth Kilometer, all of which were commissioned by Dia in 1977 and celebrate their fortieth anniversary this year. 

Walter De Maria was born in Albany, California, in 1935. He died in Los Angeles in 2013.

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