With a focus on political involvement and the communicative process, Joseph Beuys often utilized everyday objects and organic material as a vehicle for his societal objectives. Accordingly, his frequent use of multiples, as evidenced by the present example, was a means of disseminating his ideas to a greater audience.

At his “Hundred Day Office for Direct Democracy” at the 1972 documenta V in Kassel, Beuys used a rose placed in this glass beaker to illustrate both his artistic and political goals. An advocate of direct democracy, the rose for Beuys represented gradual, organic growth, a metaphor that was emphasized when placed in the rigid, unyielding beaker. As the rose required the water contained by the beaker in order to survive, “Rose für Direkte Demokratie” came to symbolize his revolutionary aims, the birth of a new political system from an old one.