Saturday, May 11th at 4pm Heroes Gallery welcomes Academy Records to perform “Partially Buried May 4th, 1970 (it is necessary to confront vague ideas with clear images),” a composition for solo stereo guitar in conjunction with our current exhibition “Coastal Funk.” 609 S Brandon St, Seattle
Both the musician Joe Walsh (The James Gang/ Barnstorm/The Eagles) and future members of the new wave/post punk band Devo were at Kent State University when the National Guard shootings happened on May 4, 1970 after the on campus protests of the previous weekend concerning the United States invasion of Cambodia on April 30, 1970.
Incidentally, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who were not there at the protests, wrote, recorded and released the song “Ohio” within 3 days of the event. (“We’re finally on our own”). Elsewhere from the Mid-West, The Stooges, from Ann Arbor Michigan, release the album “Funhouse” (July 1970) including a song titled “1970” (“Baby oh baby, burn my heart. Fall apart baby, fall apart”) about any or all of the following: ecstatic virtues of mass communication ala radio and volume, general intensity of youth culture, and an overarching sense of dread in general.
Coincidentally, in January of 1970, Robert Smithson completes “Partially Buried Woodshed” on the then eastern edge of the university campus with students of the college’s art department. In the intervening years, the sculpture’s continued presence on campus would come up for discussion until finally eastern expansion of the campus (as well as an arson attempt) forced the university to dismantle Smithson’s earthworks piece.
Meanwhile, slightly northwest of the Smithson piece is Kent State alumni Don Drumm’s piece,
“Solar Totem 1” is still installed and indeed suffered damage during the May 4 protest in 1970 (a bullet hole in the lower quadrant of the Cor Ten Steel piece).
Faced with these parallels of dread, division and trouble, not to mention historical legacy as well as the notion of site, how have we engaged with and built on history? Or have we simply clear cut our path through history to an endless loop?
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