One million years

de On Kawara, Editions Micheline Szwajcer & Michèle Didier, Delight (Firm), Jongbloed (Firm)

An artist's book by conceptual artist On Kawara exemplifies his preoccupation with the passing and marking of time, a topic at the core of the artist's practice. The first volume, “Past (998,031 BC to 1969 AD)," begins with the phrase, “For all those who have lived and died.” The second volume, “Future (1993 AD to 1,001,992 AD)," commences with “For the last one.” Both then proceed at a rate of 500 years a page. Each page is carefully laid out so that the years on subsequent pages line up exactly and are not visible through the translucent 32g Bible Veritable Ivory paper. In these books, the length of an average human life is equivalent to a few lines, and the whole of human history reduced to a few pages.