my sky hole 85-2: Light and Shadow
Inoue Bukichi (1930 to 1997) · 1985
A huge polished steel ball, taller than a person, sits on the brick paving of the forecourt, and in its mirror surface the whole museum bends around you: the red brick walls, the trees, the sky and your own distorted face. A round hole is cut into its side. Children run up to it, couples photograph themselves in it, and everyone at some point puts their head close to the opening to look inside. It is the one work of art that every visitor to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum sees, and it has become the museum's unofficial symbol.
Inoue Bukichi called the whole series of these works my sky hole, a phrase he coined for an opening through which to look at the sky. Some versions in the series are steel tunnels set into the ground, others are spheres, and the idea that runs through them is the contrast between the polished skin that reflects the world and the dark interior that shuts it out. The subtitle here, Light and Shadow, states that theme plainly. Look at the two parts of the piece: the sphere, and the shallow steel ramp that rises to meet it, which suggests that the ball has rolled into place and could roll again.
The museum gave Inoue a solo exhibition in 1985, and this piece was commissioned for it and stayed on afterwards as a permanent installation. Inoue had studied in Japan and travelled widely, and a version of his my sky hole stands in Madrid's Juan Carlos the First park. The Tokyo sphere has had a long afterlife on social media, and the museum's volunteer group has even run projects about people's affection for it. Polished daily, it reflects a hundred years of the museum around it.
Did You Know? The sphere was made for Inoue's exhibition here in 1985 and simply never left, becoming the most famous thing in a museum with no collection.
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