The 1960s saw the beginning of artists enacting literal violence in their work; Velocity Piece (Impact Run – Energy Drain) was a trailblazer as one of the first works of art that demanded the artist endure an extended, injurious ordeal. The still images leave the viewer to piece back together exactly what the work looked like upon its performance.

Velocity Piece was staged at the Ohio State University and involved Le Va running the length of the gallery and slamming himself as hard as he could into the wall, pausing for thirty seconds, and repeating the run and hurl toward the other wall. The entirety of the performance was about an hour and forty minutes; Le Va initially completed each run in three seconds and toward the end each run was about seven. It went on as long as Le Va could still stand slamming his body into the wall. It radically dramatizes the physical and architectural qualities of his distributional works. These aspects might otherwise be overlooked in favor of the excessive quality of his materials.

“People would have an auditory experience of the footsteps going in a straight line from one end to the other, my body hitting the wall, bam, stop, and back again….My activity had a specific purpose: to continue running until I had utterly exhausted myself.”- Barry Le Va