LIFETIME | ongoing
LIFETIME is an ongoing sculptural installation comprising my lifelong subscription to National Geographic magazine, a gift from my grandmother at my birth in 1957. The magazines are installed in chronological order, standing on edge with spines facing down, perpendicular to the floor. Pressed against a wall at one end and secured by a steel plate, the strata of publications compress decades of accumulated history, revealing only a hint of the iconic yellow borders on each magazine cover. Conceived in 2001, LIFETIME was acquired by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) in 2002. Each year, I provide the museum with twelve additional issues of National Geographic to mark the passage of time, continuously expanding the work's physical scale over the course of my life.
Lifetime, ongoing, National Geographic magazines, steel, 7 x 10 x depth increases with yearly installments. Collection Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, purchase made possible by a gift from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation. Photo taken in 2003 by Sibila Savage.