RICHMOND, VA.- The 1970s featured the announcement of the break-up of the Beatles, the Kent State shooting, the meltdown of Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear generating station and the $1.5 billion bailout of Chrysler Corporation. These tumultuous times also witnessed the maturity of the second wave of the women’s movement, the student movement and the black-nationalist movement, which together irrevocably changed the fabric of the country. Where would modern art go? The 1970s was a decade of aesthetic open-endedness and exploration. Artists looked in many directions for styles and images relevant to this era of social change. An University of Virginia Art Museum exhibition, Excavating New Ground: American Art in the 1970s, celebrates the art of 1970s with 14 representative works drawn from the museum’s permanent collection. Produced by artists who resided primarily on the East Coast, these works exemplif