Reinhild Beuther, 2001
My initial intention with this residency was to connect German Forest Traditions with the English ones, since I come from a very wooded area in the Northeast of Germany. I’ve been brought up with many folk songs that talk about ‘the Forest’ as a good or scary place, a place of hunting, animals and elfs – all this is still very much alive in parts of Germany. The song I chose to work with, ‘Abschied vom Walde’ by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, text by Joseph von Eichendorff, is actually a composed ‘art song’ that through its popularity found its way into my mother’s folk repertoire. It just fitted perfectly with my idea of the Forest as a true and natural place but at the same time manmade, with its Romantic notion of parting from the green and calming valleys back into the busy world. I made a floor piece in the local brickfactory imprinted with an English translation of the song. I invited four singers from the Royal College of Music in London to perform the song 3 times in German, on the brick piece which will be layed under an old beech tree in the Forest of Dean. Another part of my residency was to bring Filmbrigade Nord (a travelling cinema from former East Germany) into the Forest as an exchange of cultures.
Reinhild Beuther
Underneath was a series of artist residencies at the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail funded through the Arts Council’s ‘Year of the Artist 2000’ programme, a nationwide initiative starting in May 2000, funding over 1,700 artist residencies across 1,500 places in England.
Reinhild Beuther’s brick poem can still be found on the trail along Shortcut B. It is one of a number of hidden, temporary or decommissioned artworks that you may come across that are not marked on the map.
About the Artist
Reinhild Beuther was born in 1970 in Rostock, East Germany. She studied Art History at the Humboldt University Berlin, 1990 - 1992 and then Sculpture, Ceramics and Photography at the Hochschule fur Kunst und Design Halle “Burg Giebichenstein” and Muthesius Hochschule in Kiel, Germany 1992 - 1995, and an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London in 1997. She was DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholar at the Royal College of Art, London 1995 - 1996 and had a Henry Moore Scholarship at the Royal College of Art, London 1996 - 1997. Awards have included Merit Award, Aylesford Newsprint 1997; Deloite and Touche First Prize for Excellence 1997; First Base Award, ACAVA 1998 - 1999
She undertook a six month digital artist residency in Gloucester 1999; was artist in residence at the Poetry Festival, Ledbury, Gloucestershire 2000; artist in residence at the Sculpture Trail, Royal Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire 2000
Reinhild Beuther has exhibited widely in Great Britain and other parts of Europe, including : 1996 “Phobic” group show at Hockney Gallery, London, 1996 “GlovesOff” group show of German artists in the Shoreditch Town Hall, London, 1997 “Below Stairs” site specific show at Osterley Park House, 1997 “hothouse” exhibition in Kew Gardens, 1998 “Fire” video projection at Schloss Broellin, Germany, Sophiensale Berlin and Officina Gallery, Szehezin, Poland, 1998 “repeat” solo show with video work at Banbury Museum, 1999 “Absolut Melancholie”, touring solo show of photographic work in Central Point Gallery, London and Guildhall Arts Centre, Gloucester, 1999 “little mermaid” video installation as part of the “Single Screen” event, Forest of Dean, 2000 “Absolut Melancholie”, solo show at the NIMRC London, 2000 exhibition in Ledbury as part of Ledbury Poetry Festival, 2000 “Going Nowhere Fast”, group show at ACAVA, Cremer Street Studios, London, 2001 “Naked Nave”, sound exhibition at Gloucester Cathedral, 2001 “Beholden”, solo exhibition at Art and Design Gallery, Hatfield, University of Hertfordshire
Extensive work in sculpture, photography, digital imagery and video installations workshops include : Animationstation in Banbury 1998 - 1999; residency/workshops at Churchdown, Chosen Hill and Harewood schools, Gloucester, 1999; John Masefield High School, Ledbury as part of the Poetry Festival 2000 and teacher training workshops in Gloucester, Worcester and Herefordshire. Reinhild Beuther is a founder member of the artist run initiative artNucleus.
