“Once […] we wanted to replace the dove of peace with a new symbol of peace. So we will hereby make the rabbit a symbol of peace […] I think it is a cheerful animal that speaks to the human soul and is known by every child.” Quote Joseph Beuys after he melted down a replica of the crown of the Tsar Ivan the Terrible and cast a rabbit from it.
The rabbit, originally a found object made of sheet iron, is part of Imi Knoebel’s work complex Eigentum Himmelreich, dedicated to his friend Imi Giese, from 1983.
The studio view of Eigentum Himmelreich from 1983 shows the rabbit hanging freely on the wall. In the same year, the work was presented for the first time at the Galerie Schoof in Frankfurt a.M. and in 1984 at Le Consortium in Dijon, where the rabbit could be discovered lying on a wall ledge. Further exhibitions followed at the Musée Municipal in La-Roche-sur Yon, in 1985 and in 1992 at the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, which purchased Eigentum Himmelreich for the museum collection. In the large survey exhibition in 2014 at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Eigentum Himmelreich was shown in the first floor cabinets overlooking the Japanese Garden. The rabbit was found here only at second glance, hidden behind the cabinet.