Constitution on Tour
Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler
1991, Model train cars and tracks, sandblasted marble, metal brackets, Overall dimensions, 20 x 95 x 4.5”, Collection of the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, From the exhibition: America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler, Tang Museum, October 1 – December 30, 2005
In 1991, Philip Morris Companies, Inc. sponsored a high-profile nationwide tour of an original copy of the Bill of Rights celebrating the bicentennial of its ratification. In response, Ericson and Ziegler imagined an alternative approach to a tour for the document. The artists sandblasted the entire United States Constitution on a sample of the same marble that covers the exterior of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC—the site of the governing body responsible for interpreting the Constitution. This thin slab of marble was broken and the shards were placed into ten Union Pacific model train cars, chosen for that company’s role in creating the transcontinental railroad.