Anna Gudjónsdóttir – Seven Views of a Meadow with Plum Tree (2003)

Anna Gudjónsdóttir,
b. 1960 in Reykjavik, lives in Hamburg

On a tree-covered meadow, a gnarled plum tree of bronze was added to the natural vegetation.
The second part of the work is a panorama-like oil painting of this scenery, which is located on the attic of a nearby farmhouse. For the viewer of landscape, “tree implant” and painting a refined interplay of natural example and artistic likeness arises.

Catalog:  OUTLOOK. Landscape-related art projects in the Lüneburg Heath. Rupprecht Matthies, Peter Pommerer, Anna Gudjonsdottir, Michael Asher, Job Koelewijn, Stefan Kern, Dragset & Elmgreen.  Text: by Raimar Stange, Ralf Christofori, Belinda Grace Gardner, Lorenzo Benedetti, Eva Linhart, Stefanie Sembill, Dirck Möllmann, Bettina v. Dziembowski, revolver- Archive for Contemporary Art, 2005. 66 pp. € 20 / Member 15

Nikolaus Gerhart — Gegen-Steine (1982)

Nikolaus Gerhart, b. 1944, lives in Hechendorf and Munich

A long row of equally sized boulders stands between road and field in a precise incision runs parallel to the asphalt. In this work an everyday spatial situation is made visible and restructured.

Catalog: Nikolaus Gerhart, HAWOLI, counter-stones . Text: M. Fehr, 1982, 112 pp. € 6 / € 5

Text by M. Fehr

Further work from the symposium “Gegen-Steine”

Harald Finke — Dialog (1986)

Harald Finke,
b. 1941 in Kiel, lives in Hamburg

The work consists of shell of iron rods just big enough for a man to fit. One stands in it as though it is a hollow tree and once inside your gaze is restricted to the oak opposite the structure. Harald Finke’s contribution “Dialog” calls for something that goes beyond the usual human imagination: a dialogue between man and plant.

Catalog:  Harald Finke, Carl Vetter. Dialog.  Texts: L. Romain, H. Finke, HR Leppien, 1986, 102 pp. € 6 / € 5

Text by L. Romain 
Further work from the symposium “Dialogue”

Ulrich Eller – Hörstein (1995)

Ulrich Eller, Hörstein (1995) - Full cast and crew

Ulrich Eller, b. 1953 in Leverkusen, lives in Hanover

Ulrich Eller placed his erratic boulder on the grounds of the Schäferhof, home to the sheep herd and one of the tourist attractions of Neuenkirchen. It is only within earshot that the stone can be recognized as an artistic intervention in the landscape.

The stone is horizontally divided into two halves, which have been put together again with a millimeter distance. From the circulating gap there are permanently crushing, scratching noises that were created and recorded during the cutting and carving of the stone by the artist and processed electronically into a composition together with other everyday sounds.
“The boulder, which has been brought back into the contemporary with the aid of the noises, which otherwise occupies all quality features of human eternity, is apparently discharged from its enormous weight; it is then removed from any preconceptions and becomes a natural monument. “(Ulrich Eller)

Catalog: Ulrich Eller. Hearing stone . Text: F. Barth, H. Hellinger, 1995, 64 pp. € 10 / € 7,50

Text by F. Barth

Stefan Dornbusch – Zimmer im Freien / Blaue Insel (Outdoor Room / The Blue Island) (2011)

IMG_2175The idea of an outdoor room is a tempting… at least on warm summer days.  On the outskirts of the municipality of Drögenbostel, the artist and architect Stefan Dornbusch, who was born in Würzburg in 1963 and now lives in Berlin, has realized his vision of outdoor living. Directly on the main road between Neuenkirchen and Visselhövede, Dornbusch’s installation “Zimmer im Freien / Blaue Insel” (2011) invites you to settle down on the uniformly blue-painted benches and chairs on a wooden platform. The installation includes flower decorations in the form of pansies planted in a wash-basin  as well as an imposing juniper both of which could also be substituted by a Christmas tree in Advent. When the darkness falls, a standard street lamp provides for ambient lighting. And even a “Sofa picture” is available. Attached to a fully galvanized metal rod, the large photo shows exactly the natural landscape, which the installation conceals. Nature and its representation merge here. So far so good…were there not a hunting perch, which gives the initially friendly installation a more obvious social criticism. The upper-middle class idyll obviously wants to be defended against intruders from the outside. In fact, Stefan Dornbusch noticed in his research of the region that the landscape of hunters’ perches is just as well shaped/informed as military radar systems. And it was also observed in the private sphere: neighbors, strangers and visitors are targeted by those who have established themselves in their sometimes narrow-mindedness. What this initially so light-hearted work ends up denounces is the mentality spread in the German province of a seemingly self-sufficient, fragile, “We”-community, “protected” by the observation and exclusion of the external.

Elmgreen & Dragset – Park for Unwanted Sculptures (2003)

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Ingar Dragset b. 1969 in Trondheim / N, lives in Berlin
Michael Elmgreen b. 1961 in Copenhagen / DK, lives in Berlin

In the middle of the village of Tewel, the artist pair Elmgreen & Dragset creates a space for exterior sculptures in which the current decision-making and evaluation criteria about art in the public sphere are suspended. Artists and owners of exterior sculptures, which for a variety of reasons have no suitable location or storage space, can contribute to the “park for unwanted sculptures”. The most recent entrance is a floor sculpture “Fathers Garden” by the American conceptual artist Vito Acconci from the Swiss UBS Art Collection.

Catalog:  OUTLOOK. Landscape-related art projects in the Lüneburg Heath. Rupprecht Matthies, Peter Pommerer, Anna Gudjonsdottir, Michael Asher, Job Koelewijn, Stefan Kern, Elmgreen & Dragset.  Text: by Raimar Stange, Ralf Christofori, Belinda Grace Gardner, Lorenzo Benedetti, Eva Linhart, Stefanie Sembill, Dirck Möllmann, Bettina v. Dziembowski, revolver- Archive for Contemporary Art, 2005. 66 pp. € 20 / Member 15

Mark Dion – Springhornhof Institute of Palaeolithic Archeology (2009)

Mark Dion, Springhornhof Institute for Palaeolithic Archeology (2009)

Mark Dion, b. 1961, lives in Pennsylvania and New York, USA

The “Springhornhof Institute for Palaeolithic Archeology” is an interdisciplinary installation by the artist Mark Dion. The starting point is a collection of Stone Age finds discovered by the enthusiastic amateur archaeologist Wilm Falazik, who opened a gallery at the Springhornhof in the beginning of the sixties, in Neuenkirchen.

On three floors of the historic staircase, Dion installs prehistoric artifacts, archaeological handicrafts, finds, text fragments, and a diorama, together with shaggy mammoths, to an opulent overall staging of scientific principles, personal collection, artistic visions and stereotypes.

Mark Dion is concerned, in his over-arching space-based installations, with our dealings with nature and its representation in science and everyday life, as well as with the complex structures of a historiography created by objects.

Press Release

Tony Cragg – Holzkristall (2000)

Tony Cragg, Woodcrystal (2000)Tony Cragg, b. 1949 in Liverpool, lives in Wuppertal

According to the drawings of the artist, 46 different slices were sawn out of the industrial wood material “Kerto”, which were stacked, screwed, ground and painted to form a tower made to resemble a human profile rotating around itself. This freestanding work constantly changes as one wanders about it, allowing it to be always rediscovered.
Cragg’s contribution is an individual transformation of large-scale landscape structures. The sculpture stands on the site of a former outdoor swimming pool on the outskirts of the village of Tewel. The swimming pool is today a biotope; the paddling pool, a barbecue place. Over the Mehlandsbach one looks into the meadows and fields. Even if the sculpture formally seems quite distant to the space in which it it is presented, The decision of the artist for this place is insightful. At this point of the transition between village and landscape, the boundaries of created nature and cultivated landscape are blurred.
In his work, Tony Cragg is concerned with producing in art “things that exist neither in nature nor in our functional world” (Cragg), which ultimately reflect his feelings towards the world and his own existence.

Addendum : Fifteen years after its establishment, deep crevices and cracks had formed in the wooden structure of the sculpture. After a lengthy drying process, the surface could be closed again and the sculpture re-coated in coordination with the artist. In May 2017 the restored sculpture was welcomed at a Dorffest in Tewel.

Catalog:  Tony Cragg, Woodcrystal / Woodcrystal. Texts: C. Herstatt, L. Biggs, 2000, 66 pp. € 20 / € 15

Text by L. Biggs

Jean Clareboudt – Windberg (1981)

Jean Clareboudt, Windberg 1981Jean Clareboudt, b. 1944 in Lyon / France, died in 1997

“Windberg” has always been the name of the end moraine between the villages of Ilhorn and Sprengel. In the flat area there the entire landscape was visible.
Jean Clareboudt occupies the space at its highest point with a circular formation of ​​boulders. In the middle is a huge ring disk made of rusted steel, placed slightly obliquely on three larger boulders. The formal language and materiality of the installation suggest an observatory, protective shield, sacrificial table or cult space.
” Despite its monumentality, the work does not act as a foreign object but offers resonance with pre-existing aspects of the exposed site. The color and effect of stone and metal change under the influence of day and seasons. Climbing over the boulders leads to a cave-like space under the ring disk. Light falls through the opening. Rain and hail rattle on the metal; The wind whistles over it.

Catalog: Jean Clareboudt, Windberg. Texts: PM Bode, GG Lemaire, J. Clareboudt, 1981, 40 pp. € 6 / € 5

Text by PM Bode

Peter Könitz & Karl Ciesluk – Wege (1980/2003)

Peter Könitz, b. 1942 in Mühlheim / Ruhr, lives near Hamburg

Karl Ciesluk, b. 1952 in Ottawa / CDN, lives in Ottawa / CDN

Könitz leads the observer on a track of irregular wooden planks and steel beams aligned parallel to the road through the undergrowth. From the contrast of geometric form and organic development a plastic-spatial situation of the penetration and underflowing develops.

On the other side of the road, Karl Ciesluk continues his movement with his foundlings. As a reference to the powerful forces that shaped this landscape during the Ice Age, the stone seems to have paved the way through the forest floor as if in a timelapse.

Catalog: Arel, Boudre, Ciesluk, Duckwitz, Könitz, paths. Texts: J. Morschel ud artist, 1980, 80 p. € 6 / p. € 5
Text by J. Morschel

Claus Bury – Der Augenblick (1989/2001)

Neuenkirchen60Claus Bury,
b. 1946 in Gelnhausen, lives in Frankfurt

On the edge of a small pond near the village, Claus Bury built a walk-through and walkable architectural sculpture – half house, half tower – from rough planks. Where the building looks compact and clearly arranged from the outside, it proves to be a complex structure once entered. Opposite outer staircases lead up from the sides to an interior with high, oblique walls and without roof.
From the upper room there is no way to gain a comfortable view over the pond and the landscape. It is only from the narrow uppermost section of two side stairs that one can see the parapet. The steps invite you to sit and stay inside the tower. Here a place of calmness and contemplation emerges, in which the view is directed inward.

Catalog: Claus Bury. Der Augenblick. Text: U. Wieczorek, 1989, 72 p. € 10 / € 7,50

Text by U. Wieczorek

Valerij Bugrov – Himmel und Erde (1991/2000)

130_3Valerij Bugrov,
b. 1949 in Moscow, lives in St. Petersburg

This immaculate circular mirror has a diameter of 16 meters, “sky and earth” lie in the middle of the fields and a shoulder-width accessible walk-in slit leads slightly to the center of the reflecting surface. Viewers standing in the ground, looking across the field into the vastness, experience the interplay between the real sky and the mirrored heavenly image. Gleaming light, passing clouds and crackling rain produce a constant change to the appearance of the mirror.
The observer experiences themselves and their own reflection in an abrasive situation in which the familiar delimitations of air and earth, up and down, stability and weightlessness, materiality and immateriality become questionable.

Text by D. Wittkuhn

Catalog: Valerij Bugrov. Himmel und Erde . Text: D. Wittkuhn, 1991 (2nd ed. 2000), 56 pp. € 10 / € 7,50

Aram Bartholl – Keepalive (2015)

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From the outside, “Keepalive” by Aram Bartholl (* 1972 in Bremen) looks like a normal found object. Without knowing it one would be hard pressed to guess that this stone on the edge of the idyllic village of Hartböhn in Lüneburger-Heide contains hundreds of digital books. The work is activated when a person lights a small bonfire which trigger the function of a thermoelectric generator and a WLAN router. A smartphone or laptop may then be used to access an electronic library with survival counters of all kinds to which you can add your own data and texts.

The media artist Aram Bartholl works with ways of acquiring and transferring knowledge and information, which counteract with the current developments of the digital age and question our handling of data. In this and other of his projects, he leverages power relationships and control mechanisms in the use of Internet services for data transmission, often by adding an uncontrollable random component.

With “Keepalive”, the stone itself becomes a data carrier. In a very archaic but also conspirative way, information can only be exchanged locally, because, unlike world-networked servers, services and clouds, this stone is not connected to the Internet. You have to go into nature to find the stone and make a fire to activate the data source. This can be done by anyone who has received an explanation in the nearby Kunstverein Springhornhof or other sources of the exact location.

The advice from the collection of survival guides is prepared, so it is at least a great promise for the lonely survival in the confused world of computer programs as well as in the wild. “” Keepalive “asks what “Survival” really means, and fathoms our needs. The work addresses the problem of centralization on the Internet, raises questions about the democracy of knowledge management and initiates a counter-movement of autonomy. “(Jennifer Bork)

Aram Bartholl (* 1972 in Bremen) is a member of the artist group Free Art and Technology Lab – FAT Lab and moves in network political circles such as the Chaos Computer Club. In addition to numerous lectures, workshops and performances, his work was exhibited internationally at the MoMA Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Pace GalleryNY and Hayward Gallery London. Aram Bartholl lives and works in Berlin.

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The project “Keepalive” by Aram Bartholl was developed within the scope of the “Art and Civic Media” research project as part of the innovation incubator Lüneburg, an EU large-scale project sponsored by the European Regional Development Fund and the State of Lower Saxony.

Michael Asher – 53° 16’N 9° 57’O 52° 55’N 9° 8’O (2003)

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Michael Asher, b. 1943 – died 2012, lived in Los Angeles / USA

Michael Asher is concerned with the water, electricity and gas supply network in and around Neuenkirchen. The set of technical plans and maps of the respective distribution and management systems can be studied at the Springhornhof or purchased as slipcase . A brochure explains all the special characters and symbols. It is about access to information, the circulation of energy and networks that lie “under” the surface of the landscape.

Michael Asher was one of the most influential conceptual artists in the United States. With “subtle but deliberate interventions – supplements, changes or subtractions – especially in and from environments” he investigated connections of artistic importance and the context of the museum.

Catalog:  OUTLOOK. Landscape-related art projects in the Lüneburg Heath. Rupprecht Matthies, Peter Pommerer, Anna Gudjonsdottir, Michael Asher, Job Koelewijn, Stefan Kern, Dragset & Elmgreen.  Text: by Raimar Stange, Ralf Christofori, Belinda Grace Gardner, Lorenzo Benedetti, Eva Linhart, Stefanie Sembill, Dirck Möllmann, Bettina v. Dziembowski, revolver- Archive for Contemporary Art, 2005. 66 pp. € 20 / Member 15

Asher took part in the Documenta 5 and 7, the Venice Biennale (1976) and the Skulptur.Projekten in Münster 1977, 1987, 1997 and 2007. He had important solo exhibitions at the Center Pompidou in Paris (1991), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2003), the Art Institute of Chicago (2005) and the Santa Monica Museum of Art (2008). In 2010 he received the highly endowed Bucksbaum Award of the Whitney Biennial.

Gabriela Albergaría – D28 (2015)

Exterior sculpture of the Kunstverein SpringhornhofGabriela Albergaria, with a careful installation in the landscape, makes the traces of the reforestation of the Lüneburg Heath, carried out with a great deal of mechanical effort.

The title of the sculpture, “D28” corresponds to the position of Lüneburger Heide in the list of natural space units published by the Federal Nature Conservation Agency.

Even at the beginning of the twentieth century there were treeless heaths, a result of the centuries-long overgrazing of the barren sandy soil. It was only through the course of industrialization that the technical possibilities of breaking up the so-called “local stone”, a water-impermeable soil layer, with gigantic steam plows, allowed life to thrive on the barren ground.

The evenly running ground waves through which the installation extends are the still visible furrows of these steam plows. On the opposite side of the small hiking trail, the ground profile is much more irregular. Here the strong wind erosion had formed sand dunes, which in many places in the Lüneburger Heide threatened the existence of whole villages.

The red brick for which the artist has chosen is a typical building material of this region for buildings as well as for walkways.

Gardens and landscapes as culturally created, hierarchical, bred and planned structures is the interest of their artistic practice. Gabriela Albergaría directs our attention to the ambivalence of natural and artificial, to what has become artificial in nature, or what has developed through the rule of man over nature.

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The outdoor installation D28 was created as part of a series of art projects of the European Landscape Art Network (ELAN), which were attended by artists in the Springhornhof, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (GB), the Center of Polish Sculpture in Oronsko (PL) and Arte Sella in Trentino (I ) Relate to ecological conditions, landscape design, vegetation and growth processes of the respective place.

Gabriela Albergaria (born 1966 in Vale de Cambra, Portugal) studied art at the University of Porto and was an artist-in-residence at the artist’s house Bethanien, Cité International des Arts Paris and the Oxford Botanical Garden University. Since 1990, she has participated in numerous group and individual exhibitions. Her projects and installations were, among others, Sao Paulo (Brazil), the Villa Arson in Nice, the Kunsthalle Emden, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Biennale Montevideo.

Nils Norman – The Folly of George III / T Die Verrücktheit von Georg III. (2015)

  • The Folly of George III.
  • Innenansicht Pavillon
  • Wetterfahne
  • Plan mittelalterlicher Felder

“Folly”: Nils Norman’s pavilion is named after the capricious ornamental buildings that were a favorite feature of 18th-century English landscape parks. The British artist born in Kent in 1966, who realized projects internationally in the urban area, transformed a marvelous barbecue hut at Dorfteich in Neuenkirchen into a light, airy place to stay. Norman opened the half-closed walls, freeing the view of the surroundings. The mosaic-like paneling and the composition of the staircase-shaped round bench in the interior of the pavilion, the structuring of the paving and the path leading to the pond, together with the landing stage with a further bench at the water point to the small parcelling of the fields before the land reforms of the 18th and 19th centuries. century. The silhouette on the weather flag, Which crowns Norman’s “Folly”, represents the “peasant king” Georg III. Regent of England and Hanover. The land reforms launched under George’s rule in England were the model for a massive change in agricultural landscape in large parts of Europe.

Norman lives in London and Copenhagen, where he teaches at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. After completing a painting degree at the St. Martins School of Art in London, he worked together with artist colleagues such as Stephan Dillemuth, Josef Strau, Merlin Carpenter and Andrea Fraser in experimental production and exhibition platforms in Cologne, London and New York. His works have been represented in numerous biennials and in exhibitions of renowned art institutions such as the Tate Modern in London. However, his focus is on location-specific architectural, landscape-planning and sculptural interventions and designs in urban environments. Enlargement of the view through opening up and historical loading of the spatial conditions: Who takes place in Norman’s “Folly” Should focus on an intensification of perception. (Belinda Grace Gardner)

The installation was developed as part of the model project “Open Land – Art and Environmental Education.” 

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Jeppe Hein – Parcours (2009)

Exhibition site of Springhornhof at Camp Reinsehlen near Schneverdingen (about 16km (10mi) north of Neuenkirchen)

Jeppe Hein, Loop Bench (2009) - Camp Reinsehlen bei Schneverdingen

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Jeep Hein, Loop Bench (2009) – Camp Reinsehlen near Schneverdingen

The loop bench, which Jeppe Hein placed on the edge of a wide grass and heath area in the middle of Lüneburger Heide, is hard to overlook. The bright white sculpture looks as if a harmless park bench had mutated into a fast-paced roller coaster. It marks the beginning of “Parcours” (course) which the Danish artist ironically locates at the former military site, Camp Reinsehlen at Schneverdingen.

The works exist along a circular route, among military building relics and remnants of World War II airfields and British armories. They are all reminiscent of park benches, minus their functionality. Each “bench” is deformed or alienated in some way: too high, too deep, seemingly broken or bent into a circle.

The highlight of the art course, however, is quite inconspicuous. On the edge of the water tank for the former armored car wash station is a simple wooden bench. During summer months, if you sit down, a 20m (66ft) high water fountain rises in the middle of the basin. There is a provocative dialogue in the juxtaposition of the harsh architecture with the poetic event. However, as is so often the case in the work of Jeppe Hein, the work of art manifests itself only through first-hand perception.

In the summer of 2007, Jeppe Hein won the “Landschaftskunstpeis NEULAND” for “Parcours”, which was sponsored by the Lower Saxony Foundation together with the Stiftung (foundation) Springhornhof and in close cooperation with the Institute of Landscape Architecture at the Leibniz Universität Hannover.

Publication: Neuland – Landscape Between Reality and Imagination. Hg. by Bettina von Dziembowski, Udo Weilacher and Joachim Werren. Birkhäuser, 2009. €32.95

Jeppe Hein (Born 1974 in Copenhagen) is a Danish sculptor living in Berlin. He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and at the Städel-Hochschule (University) für Bildende Künste in Frankfurt. His works are exhibited internationally, including the Tate Liverpool (A Secret History of Clay), the Contemporary Performing Arts Gallery in Leipzig (Performative Installation), and New York’s Museum P.S.1 (Flying Cube).

For further information please contact  Schneverdingen Touristik.