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Of the conceptual artists who began their careers in the 1960's and 1970's-Bruce Nauman, Chris Burden, Vito Acconci, and Mel Bochner among them-Barry Le Va may be the most elusive. As this first study of his work reveals, his rigorously planned art was instigated to mask its creator's intentions and methods, presenting itself as an "aftermath" of modernism's claim to permanency and civil society's preferred mode of monumentalism. For Michael Maizels, Le Va's work constitutes a particularly productive subject of inquiry because it clearly articulates the interconnection between the avant-garde's...