1971
See: Avalanche Magazine, No. 3 (Fall 1971).
This mythical reference highlights a legendary, yet unrealized, conceptual work that was intended to unite the worlds of New York's Sound and Land Art in the early 1970s. The mention of a "Drum Duel at Dawn in Central Park" comes from an extensive interview with Max Neuhaus published in the landmark avant-garde art journal Avalanche Magazine, No. 3 (Fall 1971), edited by Willoughby Sharp and Liza Béar. Although De Maria is internationally renowned for his massive Land Art installations such as The Lightning Field (1977), he was also a top-notch percussionist who played drums for the early Velvet Underground (The Primitives) and composed minimalist drone music. The concept called for both artists to set up full drum kits in opposing, distant locations within New York's Central Park at the crack of dawn. The duel was conceived as a test of acoustic distance, atmospheric decay, and physical endurance. By beating the drums at dawn, when the background noise of city traffic is at its lowest, the sound of their polyrhythms would have pierced the topography of the park, echoing off the trees and rocky terrain and creating a massive natural acoustic delay system.
Although the event was never staged publicly, the mere suggestion of the "Drum Duel" perfectly captures the paradigm shift underway in 1971. Both Neuhaus and De Maria were actively abandoning traditional galleries and indoor concert halls, treating the entire Earth and urban geography as a raw canvas and acoustic volume. The original printed documentation, including photographs, conceptual sketches, and the interview text, is held in independent art archives and can be consulted through specialized art registries such as Specific Object in New York.