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For Brooklyn-based artist SoiL Thornton’s edition for TEXTE ZUR KUNST, Thornton asked to receive 120 copies of the key to the magazine’s office. They dipped each key’s blade in steel-reinforced epoxy, threaded the key onto a steel wire ring, and attached it to a steel tube that once belonged to an NYPD barrier used in crowd control. Titled “Who makes who at home,” the edition interrogates normative notions of safety and (dis)comfort, subtly asking, Who gets protected, how, and from what? Who is made to feel welcome in institutions gatekept by the dominant culture? The edition’s thoroughly steel materiality and unwieldy form are anything but warm and welcoming. And, with its cuts submerged in epoxy, this key certainly won’t open any doors.
Technique: key, steel reinforced J-B Weld epoxy, 10.2 cm long steel wire key ring, and removed galvanized steel NYPD barrier support railing
