Paul Ramírez Jonas, Key to the City

This summer, Creative Time is pleased to present Key to the City in cooperation with The City of New York. This project by artist Paul Ramírez Jonas reinvents the civic honor of bestowing keys on luminaries as a master key able to unlock more than 20 sites across New York Cityʼs five boroughs—such as locks within the Brooklyn Museum and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Members of the public will award thousands of these custom-made keys to each other in one-to-one ceremonies. The keys will be distributed from a kiosk in Times Square, open daily from June 3 to 27.

“Key to the City is an innovative public art project that encourages New Yorkers to recognize each other with the quintessential symbol of civic honor—a key to the city,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Every day, millions of New Yorkers and visitors from around the world interact with one another in every neighborhood—on subways, at coffee shops, in parks—and artist Paul Ramírez Jonas’ idea celebrates those interactions by helping bring a tradition typically reserved for special occasions to our everyday lives. The keys will unlock sites in all five boroughs and will provide New Yorkers with a new way to experience some of our cultural organizations, city landmarks and small businesses.”

“With Key to the City, Paul Ramírez Jonas demonstrates, on a civic level, the urban delimitation between private and public. In essence, this simple exchange of a key allows one to gain access to a poetic collage extended across New York City,” says Nato Thompson, Chief Curator of Creative Time.

A traditional key to the city is both an award and a symbol, typically given by the mayor to a local hero or visiting dignitary such as Captain Sully (Chesley Sullenberger), who safely landed a damaged plane in the Hudson River. In Key to the City, Ramírez Jonas democratizes this ritual, empowering everyday citizens to honor each other. The bestowal ceremonies will take place in an open space that looks like a village lawn designed by the artist in the heart of New Yorkʼs busiest common space, Times Square. Participants will also receive a map to sites that the Key to the City unlocks, such as secret public spaces, special opportunities within major landmarks, and small community spaces. “The Key to the City allows everyday people the chance to honor one another, grants access to the city that is already theirs, and celebrates us all,” says Anne Pasternak, President and Artistic Director of Creative Time. “The tradition of the key to the city comes from the age of fortified cities, when a key could open the gates of a city like a home. This new version is a functional sculpture that opens urban spaces to the public and honors everyday citizens.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in California and raised in Honduras, Paul Ramírez Jonas currently lives, works, and teaches in New York City. In his practice, he challenges the boundaries between artwork and spectator by asking participants to contribute something—such as a penny, wish, or key—in order to fully engage with his projects. Key to the City is not the first time that Ramírez Jonas has explored the creative possibilities of the key. In Mi Casa Su Casa (2005), he delivered a series of lectures about how space can be defined as either locked or unlocked, before inviting the audience to exchange keys with him and one another. The same year, he created a permanent work of public art, a small park called Taylor Square, for Cambridge, Massachusetts. 5,000 keys to the park’s gate were mailed to the homes closest to the commons, symbolizing a shared sense of ownership. Finally, Ramírez Jonas’ project Talisman (2008) for the 28th São Paulo Biennial asked visitors to engage in a public agreement, leaving behind a copy of one of their own keys in exchange for a key to the front door of the iconic Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavillion that housed the biennial. Key to the City expands his longstanding interest in the key not so much as an object, but a vehicle for exploring social contracts as they pertain to trust, access, and belonging. Ramírez Jonas holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BA from Brown University. He has received numerous honors, exhibited internationally, and lectured at universities across the country.