Tantamount to nature, the animal in Joseph Beuys' work stands for the primal, symbolizing a source of a tremenduous energy with almost supernatural instincts and senses of orientation that man has lost. For this concept the artist had a number of preferred animals, among them the hare. Beuys strong degree of identification with the hare finds expression in statements like "i am not human, i am a hare". The symbolic value of the color gold and the hare as mythologic animal with various symbolic meanings were joined for the first in 1982 in the happening "Goldhase" at documenta VII for which Beuys melted a copy of the golden crown of Ivan the Terrible, forming a peace hare with a sun globe as relic. In the following the golden hare became a key figure in the work of Joseph Beuys. [SM]