Mike Tarr

Partially Buried Woodshed

Partially Buried Woodshed, one of Smithson's iconic works, was executed at Kent State University in Ohio in January 1970. The piece was created by partially burying an empty shed under mounds of dirt with a backhoe until the shed's roof beam collapsed. The physical structure has long since been degraded by weather, vandalism and neglect; it has "gone back to the land," as the artist expected. However, the infamous Kent State shootings in May of 1970, in which National Guardsmen opened fire on students protesting the Vietnam War, killing four of them, has lent Smithson's entropic monument a peculiar historical resonance as a metaphorical locus of the forces and conflicts of its era.