Paying homage to the ancient rites of the summer solstice, Italian artist Giuseppe Penone was joined by dOCUMENTA (13) artistic director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the citizens of Kassel, Lord Mayor Bertram Hilge, and many others, to dedicate Penone’s Idee di Pietra (Ideas of Stone), 2004/10. This outdoor sculpture, the first artwork to be installed for dOCUMENTA (13), serves as both a totem and as a talisman, as the piece evokes, by way of prelude, a myriad of ideas that will play out as the greater exhibition unfolds. For example, the work functions to transform a nondescript site into an attractor for social interaction, thus questioning how a sense of place can be rendered.
