Jon Sasaki | Skeleton Key to Many Cities

Jon Sasaki

Skeleton Key to Many Cities

Toronto, Canada: Casey House, 2010

1.5 x 5.5″

Edition of 125 signed copies

A "key to the city" is an honour bestowed by a mayor or city council to esteemed residents and visitors. The practice evokes the time of medieval walled cities, whose gates would be guarded during the day and locked at night. The key therefore symbolizes that the recipient is a "trusted friend of the city" and is therefore free to enter and leave the city at will.

Here Sasaki presents the buyer with a 'skeleton' or 'master' key, capable of opening multiple locks. The work is made of cast pewter and housed inside a black velvet case, with a signed certificate containing the below statement. 

The work contains many themes that the artist explores elsewhere in his practice, such as the shortcut or workaround, and the blurring of sincerity and irony. He presents a cynicism and simultaneously softens it. The sentiment might be read - particularly in an era where simply welcoming outsiders is a contentious political act - as a gesture of compassion and solidarity. Conversely, the 'skeleton key' often has nefarious connotations. 

Sasaki has produced several related works, but I Want to be Welcome Everywhere, Always 
from two years prior is most closely tied to this edition. The piece (see below) consists of an ongoing collection of ceremonial keys to a variety of cities, representing a futile attempt to secure a key for every city in the world. 

"An expression of a desire for acceptance and connectedness, and a wish to be genuinely welcome where one travels. Place this multiple on your desk and be reminded daily of your own special attributes and the place they may take you."

- Jon Sasaki