1. OUTER GUIDING SYSTEM

e) crown caps
Crown caps on the street are a sign of our
civilization, they indicate where people linger,
gather and crowd, and which ways they go
or have gone. The crown cap is a simple and
direct sign, and in contrast to other “remains”
and indications of our daily life, the crown cap
is “persistent”.
Once thrown to the ground, it can hardly be
removed; rusted specimens can therefore even
be found when digging in the earth.
Due to the daily use of the crown cap and the
way it is carelessly disposed of, it becomes an
“invisible” guiding system through a city.
Especially in the year of the documenta, many
of these crown caps will line the ways and point
to the direction that people and visitors will take
through the city. Some of the crown caps will
become buried in the earth and remain in the city
for a long time to come.
One of these crown caps was freed of its anonymity
for documenta 12; it was cast and gilded. It will
be given back to the visitors of the show, who also
become part of the guiding system, consciously
or unconsciously, through their visit. But because
of the crown cap, which has now become a gem,
as it were, the idea of the exhibition is carried
out into the world, spanning a dense network based
on this found object from Kassel.

a) signs
b) containers
c) living guiding system
d) ceramic hills
e) crown caps

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