The tree obverse Ann Shelton Essays by Dorothée Brill and Emma

The tree obverse
Ann Shelton
Essays by
Dorothée Brill and
Emma Bugden
The tree obverse
Ann Shelton
Essays by
Dorothée Brill and
Emma Bugden
1
Seeing the wood,
not the trees
Dorothée Brill
2
3
Photography “will make painting obsolete”.1 This
prediction, noted in the 1870s by Gustave Flaubert
in his Dictionary of Received Ideas, responded to
the fact that with the advent of photography,
painting had lost its primary function. It had
no longer the responsibility of depicting the
visible, of visually representing people, objects
and events. Looking back, however, painting’s
sudden lack of vocational grounding was in no
way to cause its demise, as Flaubert had predicted.
In the absence of its former role, painting was
free to emancipate itself from mimetic tasks
of any description. Gone was the responsibility
to represent persons in the form of portraits, or
events in the form of history paintings. This is the
context in which we should view Paul Delaroche’s
bold declaration, cited here by photographer
Gisèle Freund: “From today, painting is dead.” 2
and interpretation, between the painter as
objective reporter and subjective storyteller.
Delaroche, a French history painter and member
of the Academie Française, was referring to
daguerreotypes; to him, these early photographs
signified the immediate dissolution of his role
as a painter. However, the change affected by
photography becoming the primary means of
documenting historical events was not only a
change in media, but also a change in status;
such depiction was no longer regarded as a
process of art but one of craft. This shift was
a result of the mechanical process involved in
creating pictures photographically, which seemed
to overcome the tensions that had traditionally
informed history painting—the divergences
between fact and fiction, between documentation
With her photographic project in a forest, Ann
Shelton addresses the different thresholds entailed
in transporting historical events onto an artistic
level. Across the globe, Shelton has captured
photographic evidence of the questionable trophies
that were received by the Gold Medal winners of
the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. The winners,
who in this instance were crowned not with a
standard laurel wreath but a wreath made from
oak leaves, were presented, alongside their medal
and certificate, with a sapling from a German
oak. “Grow in honour of this victory—spur further
deeds”,3 was written on the plant pots. The course
of history that was to follow the Berlin Olympics
goes to show how insidious an award this was; at
4
In the latter decades of the 20th century, this
seeming shift away from the realm of art was not
only re-evaluated by the fact that photography
on the whole established itself as an art form
on a par with painting, sculpture and drawing,
as well as with the newly emerging time-based
visual arts. There was also an increasing
awareness of the influence that the producer,
or creator, has over the mechanical image.
The elementary question that once defined the
discourse of historical painting thus also extends
to photography. At what point does documentation
become interpretation? At which stage is fact
absorbed into fiction? Is it at all possible to
draw a discernible line between the two?
5
the time, the organising committee had described
the gift as a “beautiful symbol of German
character, German strength, German endurance
and German hospitality”.4 In light of the wideranging discriminatory practices instated in
Germany even at this time, leading to countries
such as the U.S. calling for a boycott of the Berlin
games, this statement was at best cynical.
Little numismatic knowledge is needed to realise
that the oak has always been a national symbol
in Germany—be it in the time of the German
Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era,
socialist East Germany, or the Federal Republic of
Germany. Not only have oak leaves been used as
a decorative element on coins through the ages;
the oak-planting woman became an important
post-war symbol for reconstruction. Most
tenaciously, however, the oak remains a symbol
of the ruling mentality of the Nazis—be it in the
form of an oak wreath adorning a swastika in
the fangs of the German eagle, or in the words of
a marching song, possibly from as early as 1933:
“On Adolf Hitler Square stands a young oak tree;
borne out of devastation and great need it strives
towards the sun. Oak, guide us until we die in
our loyal and brave battle for the fatherland.” 5
Of these considerations, none are immediately
evident in Ann Shelton’s photographs of the
30-odd oak trees grown from the saplings
gifted over 75 years ago. Shelton’s works are
neutrally-lit, front-facing full frame views of the
trees, mounted as a group with each photograph
6
mirrored by another, upside-down. This evokes
not only the titular forest, but also the notion
of this conceptual forest being reflected.
While there is a direct thematic analogy to Joseph
Beuys’ 7000 Oaks, a land art project whereby a total
of 7000 oaks (as well as other trees) were planted
in the German city of Kassel between 1982 and
1987, another work further afield displays more
telling parallels. With an installation concept
that is at once sobering and alienating, in a forest
has a certain affinity to Jackson Mac Low’s Tree*
Movie from 1961. This work, created around the
beginnings of the Fluxus movement, was not so
much a film as an instruction for making a film:
“Select a tree*. Set up and focus a movie camera
so that the tree* fills most of the picture. Turn on
the camera and leave it on without moving it for
any number of hours. If the camera is about to run
out of film, substitute a camera with fresh film.
The two cameras may be alternated in this way
any number of times. Sound recording equipment
may be turned on simultaneously with movie
cameras. Beginning at any point in the film, any
length of it may be projected at a showing.” The
asterisk contained in the title was elaborated
on in a footnote: “*For the word ‘tree’, one may
substitute ‘mountain’, ‘sea’, ‘flower’, ‘lake’, etc.” 6
What the works of Ann Shelton and Jackson Mac
Low have in common is their juxtaposition of
documentary aesthetics with a desire to alienate
the depicted subjects. Using very simple devices,
these works experiment with breaking down
7
the innate relationship between the signified
and the signifier, i.e., the tree and its depiction.
By projecting a largely static image of a tree for
several hours and further complementing this
with a layered and incessantly-repeated recording
of the word ‘tree’, Mac Low’s 1975 presentation of
Tree* Movie had the effect of gradually eroding
its subject’s familiarity. “What happens if a word
is repeated to a point at which its meaningful
semantic entity collapses, leaving behind only a
collection of isolated phonemes?” asks Kathryn
Chiong, providing her own answer: “The result is
not simply a meaningless mumble—rather, the
excessiveness of the process signals a presence of
its own.” 7 When a word is repeated over and over,
it loses its descriptive function and is instead
perceived as an abstract acoustic contour.
The same type of transformation can be affected
within visual language. When the objectivity
inherent in documentary visual presentation is
disrupted, this can reveal a parallel perspective on
the depicted subject. In the process of attempting
to ascribe meaning to Mac Low’s hours-long
projection of unchanging tree footage, viewers
may gain a new perspective on something that
they otherwise instinctively classify as a tree. In
this respect, Tree* Movie is a superb example of
the Fluxus aim to subtly disrupt our day-to-day
perceptual processes and detach them from their
ingrained associative structures, transforming
them into tangible, conscious experiences.
It is exactly at this point that the functional
becomes fictional—which is also what happens
8
in Ann Shelton’s in a forest. She achieves this
transformation by laying out a series of mirrored
images that, both in terms of form and content,
appear entirely ordinary, arbitrary even.
Unlike Mac Low, however, Shelton does not
so much concern herself with exposing our
perceptual processes for their own sake.
Whereas Fluxus pursues a reduction of
signification—draining sensory perception
from being instantaneously charged with a
pre-fi xed meaning—Shelton uses a parallel
approach to venture into the opposite direction.
With similarly simple means of defamiliarisation,
she sets off a process of charging rather than
discharging, and focuses on the point at which
the depiction becomes a metaphor. Where is it
that an interpretational perspective begins? Or,
more specifically: What are the stages whereby a
series of innocuous photographs of similarly sized
and aged trees becomes understandable as more
than just that? Which steps of estrangement are
required to bring such a series of images firstly
to represent an historical event—the celebration
of Olympic medallists; secondly to expose the
self-serving and subversive glorification of a
cruel dictator; and finally to become a beacon
against the sprouting of political regimes such as
the Third Reich and ideologies such as Nazism?
Shelton thus addresses the impossibility of
drawing a line between fact and fiction and
between documentation and interpretation.
The perceived objectivity of an image can be
9
understood as depending on the extent to
which the process of its decoding affirms or
deviates from a standard reading. By combining
documentary aesthetics—an aesthetic
that is considered neutral—with simple
modifications of the photographs’ presentation,
she initiates our mistrust in what is depicted
and triggers our suspicion as to what it is our
eyes perceive and our mind understands.
1
The
lacuna
Flaubert, G. (1976). Bouvard and Pécuchet, trans. Krailsheimer, A. J.
New York: Penguin Books, p. 321.
2 Paul D, cit. after: Freund, G. (1980). Photography and Society.
London: Gordon Fraser, p. 81.
3 See Wildmann, D. (1998). Begehrte Körper. Konstruktion und
Inszenierung des „arischen“ Männerkörpers im „Dritten Reich“,
Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, p. 90. Quote translated
from German.
4 Cit. after ibid., p. 91.
5 The German original reads: “Am Adolf Hitler-Platz steht eine
junge Eiche, sie strebt zur Sonne auf von Sturm und Not. Sie ist
uns Vorbild treu und brav zu streiten für unser Vaterland bis in
den Tod.” Text: Wilhelm Friedrich Weiß, music: Emil Palm.
6 See, for example, Fredman, K; Smith, O; and Sawchyn, L (eds.).
(2002). The Fluxus Performance Workbook (e-publication).
Performance Research, p. 77.
7 Chiong, K. Naumans Beckett Gang. In Glasmeier, M (ed.). (2000).
Samuel Beckett, Bruce Nauman. Vienna: Kunsthalle Wien, p. 103.
Quote translated from German.
10
Emma Bugden
11
The essence of the trauma is precisely that it is
too horrible to be remembered, to be integrated
into our symbolic universe. All we have to
do is mark repeatedly the trauma as such.
—Slavoj Žižek 1
When suffering is no longer an open wound,
but a scab of the past we pick away at, memory
comes to the fore. The role of the memorial
is to provide a locator beacon for public
remembrance. Official sites are places where
mediated and civic events occur, wreaths are
laid and ceremony is facilitated. They provide
a channel for public grief—whether formal (as
at war memorials) or informal (such as the
mounds of flowers, letters and other tributes
that sprung up in London and around the
world when Diana, Princess of Wales died).
The trees that provide the subject for Ann Shelton’s
photographic series in a forest were originally
offered up as unique forms of commemoration (or
propaganda) for the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games,
the apotheosis of pre-war Nazi triumphalism.
Now they can be read as living reminders of
the slaughter and destruction that followed.
Our visual perception of those Olympic Games is
filtered through Leni Riefenstahl’s remarkable
and highly charged film Olympia. The beauty
and majesty of the film is underscored with
deep sadness, however. Her camera lingers
lovingly on the sculpted bodies of healthy young
men and women, oblivious to the fact that soon
12
the competitive urge that fuels them will be
refocused into desperate and bloody battle.
Shelton’s photography creates an archive,
mapping and detourning the trees across
Europe, America and Canada—even to
New Zealand. In doing so, in a forest creates
a new form of memorial that can be read as
counter to official monuments. Taking as
her subject “trauma, anxiety, violence and
failure” 2 , she uncovers the obscured or lost
histories of oddities of nature, individual
trees that are deeply connected through
history but are now largely unknown
outside of their immediate surroundings.
For thousands of years and in many cultures,
trees have been used to commemorate events
and memories—to celebrate the birth of a baby,
or as the scattering place for human ashes.
War memorials have more often been built
from permanent materials such as concrete
and stone seeking a monolithic status, leaving
trees as a more porous container for history.
Trees are also unlike stone obelisks or museum
displays (even contemporary ones such as the
Jüdisches Museum Berlin) that actively direct
the viewer, endeavouring to produce a prescribed
sensation or experience. Liberated from the
official duty of speaking truth to history and
even from the obligation of remembrance,
the trees, quite simply, focus on growing, and
could keep on doing so for hundreds of years.
13
The story of how these trees came to exist is simple
but intriguing—each of the 130 Gold Medalists
at the Berlin Games was awarded a one-year-old
oak sapling along with their medal. While they
fitted into the vocabulary of Nazi propaganda,
the trees also referred back to earlier mythologies
around laurel leaves and the original Olympic
Games, making deliberate connection between
contemporary German self-mythologising and
a deep romanticisation of the classical era.
Back in the athletes’ home countries, ‘Hitler Oaks’,
as they are sometimes known, were planted in
a variety of public and private sites, from civic
parks and squares to stadiums, schools, and
private gardens. Many of the individual stories of
the trees and their recipients are etched with loss
and hardship, reflecting the shifting borders and
geo-political trauma of WWII and the following
Cold War. Athletes were killed or displaced—like
Márton Lőrincz, whose oak could not be planted
in his home in Transylvania and instead ended
up in his adopted home of Szentes in Hungary.
The placement of other trees tells us more about
different political pulses at play—for example
the less than official location of the tree received
by African-American athlete Cornelius Johnson
(which was planted in his mother’s backyard)
suggest an inhospitable climate of race relations.
Ann Shelton’s photography is the result of detailed
and intensive research over many years, peeling
back layers of history and building up new strata
14
of meaning. Of the 130 trees originally awarded,
Shelton’s series comprises over 35 at the time of
writing. With no comprehensive archive detailing
their presence, the trees were difficult to locate,
the artist trawling libraries and the internet
for the scant sources available, and making
frequent use of Google’s online translator.
Arguably the most famous recipient of an
Olympic Oak—African American sprinter Jesse
Owens—was awarded four trees. One is generally
acknowledged to be sited at the high school in
Cleveland where he trained, but the locations of
the other trees are more mysterious. Canada’s only
Olympic Oak, awarded to Ottawa paddler Frank
Amyot, has also disappeared from public memory,
despite the recent efforts of local historians.
The lack of an official historical record for the
oaks reflects the ambiguous and uncomfortable
provenance the trees have developed—are they to
be commemorated or repudiated?
When shown in New Zealand, in a forest is nuanced
by our relationship to the first photograph, taken
in 2005 of the only oak planted in New Zealand,
awarded to Jack Lovelock for winning the 1500
metres and growing still in the grounds of his Alma
mater, Timaru Boy’s High School.
Shelton had heard vaguely of the tree as a
teenager growing up in Timaru, with its
colloquial reputation both as ‘Lovelock’s Oak’
and a ‘Hitler Oak’. Lovelock’s tree is now 76 years
old, with an urban legend grown up alongside
15
it, part of the larger fibre of Lovelock’s legacy,
yet still largely unknown outside of Timaru.
Lovelock’s tree was not planted until 1941,
having travelled to New Zealand in the
care of fellow runner and teammate, Cecil
Matthews, as Lovelock himself no longer lived
here. By the time Matthews arrived home the
seedling was in poor health, and required
nursing by the curator of the Christchurch
Botanical Gardens, James McPherson, before
it could be permanently planted. Lovelock
himself never saw his tree in-situ, returning
only once to New Zealand on a government
sponsored tour immediately after the Games.
Of his Olympic win, Lovelock wrote in his
diary, “It was undoubtedly the most beautifully
executed race of my career, an artistic creation.” 3
As a hero Lovelock is complex, resisting
reduction to a simplistic nationalistic icon. He
provides an almost subversive counterpoint
to the straightforward stoicism displayed
by New Zealand sporting icons of the 1950s
and 60s such as Colin ‘Pinetree’ Meads or
Ed ‘We Knocked the Bastard Off’ Hillary.
A man whose cheerful grin was so capacious
it seemed it could swallow his face, Lovelock
fought a bleak inner battle with depression and
in later life experienced a brain injury that led
to insomnia and bouts of extreme dizziness.
His death, hit by a subway train in New York at
a still youthful 39, remains a tragic mystery—
16
either suicide or inexplicable accident. In a
contemporary society where more recent symbols
of sporting masculinity like John Kirwan can
speak freely about mental illness, Lovelock
continues to be re-examined culturally as a
highly mysterious figure, onto whom fictionalised
narratives and conjecture are still projected.
Shelton’s work operates as a series of projections—
of Lovelock, the other recipients, and the ghosts
and echoes of the past. Unlike conventional
documentary photography, which purports to
tell a single truth, the works are exhibited as a
series of diptychs, or inverted doubles, a format
that allows us to experience the trees as a series
of abstracted shapes. This process, which Shelton
has termed “stammering”, refutes a singular
narrative, hinting at the constructed and
uncertain nature of history itself. Stammering,
suggests Shelton, “might change the cognition
or reception of images conceptually—suggesting
an uncertainty, violence or a kind of duplicity.” 4
If one of photography’s key responsibilities is
to bear witness, what then, does stammering
do to how we understand this archive’s power
to communicate? Photographed quite plainly,
capturing each site just as Shelton found them
(to the extent of including parked cars in front
of trees), the images provide us with a wealth
of factual information, while simultaneously
revealing little beyond the immediate.
In researching the accounts of Holocaust
survivors, philosopher Giorgio Agamben came
17
to the conclusion that “all testimony contains a
lacuna” 5 —a gap—making the nature of testimony
simultaneously necessary and impossible. It is in
the repetition of Shelton’s images, their mirroring,
in which we glimpse the lacuna, the cut that
reopens a historical wound.
1
in a forest
Žižek, S. (1991). For They Know Not What They Do:
Enjoyment as a Political Factor. London: Verso, p. 272-3.
2 Shelton, A. (2010). Doubling, www.annshelton.com,
retrieved April 20th 2012.
3 Colquhoun, D (ed.). (2008). As If Running On Air: the Journals
of Jack Lovelock. Nelson: Craig Potton Publishing, p 241.
4 Shelton, A. (2010). Doubling, www.annshelton.com,
retrieved April 20th 2012.
5 Agamben, G. (1999). Remnants of Auschwitz. The Witness
and the Archive. New York: Zone Books, p. 33.
18
Ann Shelton
19
(Detail) Seedling, Jack Lovelock’s Olympic Oak, Timaru
Boys’ High School, Timaru, New Zealand. Featured in Leni
Riefenstahl’s Olympia, Lovelock set a new world record
and won gold in what some regard as one of the finest
1500m Olympic finals of all time. In his thesis James
Constandt refers to Lovelock entrusting his seedling
into the care of teammate Cecil Matthews to deliver it
home to New Zealand. By the time it arrived it was in
poor condition but was nursed back to health and in 1941
was planted at Timaru Boys’ High School. 2005-2010.
All works are presented as 2 x C-type prints 1.2 x 1.5m
each and except for Timaru were photographed in 2011.
These trees were awarded at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
and are sometimes also called ‘Hitler Oaks’.
20
(Detail) Seedling, Cornelius Johnson’s Olympic Oak,
Koreatown, Los Angeles, United States of America.
Growing in what was probably the back yard of
the athlete’s mother. Difficult to find, this tree was
mentioned in a Los Angeles Times article dated 2007.
Cornelius Johnson received one of several Gold
Medals won by African Americans at the games.
He returned to the U.S. where racial segregation
was practiced until 1964. Johnson died in 1946.
21
(Detail) Seedling, Toni Merkens’s Olympic Oak,
Velodrome, Köln, Germany. Toni Merkens won his Gold
Medal for cycling in the Men’s 1000m Match Sprint
event. His oak is standing, in what is now a carpark,
next to Köln’s velodrome and stadium. As yet little
further information is available about this oak and its
recipient though internet sources indicate that Merkens
was killed in World War Two on the Eastern Front.
22
(Detail) Seedling, Unknown Athletes’ Olympic Oak #1,
Olympic Stadium, Amsterdam, Netherlands. By the
canal behind the stadium, this is one of a pair of oaks,
growing side by side that were most likely awarded
to the swimming relay team of Rie Mastenbroek,
Willy den Ouden, Tini Wagner, and Jopie Selbach
and to Nida Senff, also a swimmer. Both of these
oaks are currently unmarked though historic photos
show small intricate round wrought iron fences
protecting them. Rie Mastenbroek also received two
other oaks in the 100 and 400 metres Freestyle and
these were given to the Rotterdam Zoo. According
to James Constandt, both of these died “during the
awful bombardment” by the German Luftwaffe.
23
(Detail) Seedling, Unknown Athletes’ Olympic Oak #2,
Olympic Stadium, Amsterdam, Netherlands. By the
canal behind the stadium, this is one of a pair of oaks,
growing side by side that were most likely awarded
to the swimming relay team of Rie Mastenbroek,
Willy den Ouden, Tini Wagner and Jopie Selbach
and to Nida Senff, also a swimmer. Both of these
oaks are currently unmarked though historic photos
show small intricate round wrought iron fences
protecting them. Rie Mastenbroek also received two
other oaks in the 100 and 400 metres Freestyle and
these were given to the Rotterdam Zoo. According
to James Constandt, both of these died “during the
awful bombardment” by the German Luftwaffe.
24
(Detail) Seedling, Willi Kaiser’s Olympic Oak, Gladbeck
Stadium, Gladbeck, Germany. In his thesis on the
Olympic Oaks, James Constandt states that the planting
of this tree was delayed by 12 years, due in part to Willi
being in a Russian prison. Later, apparently in the
face of neglect and disinterest from the Gladbeck City
Council, Willi spent the last 14 years of his life caring
for his monument himself. He died in 1986. By 1992 the
bronze plaque under the tree had completely corroded
away and Willi’s son began negotiations with the
Mayor to arrange a replacement. When this image was
made there was a new marble plaque under the tree.
25
(Detail) Seedling, Louis Hostin’s Olympic Oak, Parc de
l’Europe, St. Étienne, France. According to one source
this tree was moved around 1945 from Cimetière de
Montmartre, where it was discovered mysteriously
growing over a German soldier’s grave, eventually
making its way to the park in St. Étienne.
26
(Detail) Seedling, Franco Riccardi’s Olympic Oak, Chiesa
di San Rocco, San Colombano al Lambro, Italy. Initially
having little more to go on than a Google translation of an
il Cittadino article that suggested it was “close to the 16th
Century oratory of San Rocco” (of which there are several
throughout Italy) this tree proved difficult to locate.
27
(Detail) Seedling, Undine (also Ondina and Trabzon)
Valla’s Olympic Oak, Stadio Renato Dall’Ara, Bologna,
Italy. Valla was the first Italian woman to win a Gold
Medal. Her oak had been growing healthily until the
stadium was enlarged in 1990 at which time it was
either cut down or died as a result of being unable to
adapt to its new situation. In 1997 a replacement oak
was planted in a ceremony with Valla in attendance.
28
(Detail) Seedling, Edoardo Mangiarotti, Giancarlo
Cornaggia-Medici, Saverio Ragno, Franco Riccardi,
Giancarlo Brusati, and Alfredo Pezzana’s Olympic Oak,
Capitoline Hill, Rome, Italy. There was once two oaks
on this site—this one is for the Men’s Team Épée and
the other was for the Men’s Team Foil. A 2009 article
in Il Tempo describes, with a sense of disgrace, how
in the 90s when Rome was campaigning to host the
2004 games, a visiting member of the International
Olympic Committee found these two trees had become
forgotten and the commemorative plaques, set in the
grass at their bases, overgrown and unreadable.
29
(Detail) Seedling, Site of Ferenc Csik’s Olympic Oak,
Kaposvár, Hungary. Having won Gold in the 100m
Men’s Freestyle, Csik’s oak was ceremoniously
planted next to the swimming pool in his
hometown. According to some Kaposvár locals, the
oak was recently cut down to accommodate an
enlargement of the swimming pool complex.
30
(Detail) Seedling, Márton Lőrincz’s Olympic Oak, Szentes,
Hungary. Sources indicate that Lőrincz was unable
to plant his oak in his hometown in Transylvania
as it had become part of Romania and so offered it
to his newly adopted home of Szentes instead.
31
(Detail) Seedling, Tibor Berczelly, Aladár Gerevich, Endre
Kabos, Pál Kovács, László Rajcsányi, and Imre Rajczy’s
Olympic Oak, Berettyóújfalu, Hungary. In a park beside
the main road, in the middle of Berettyóújfalu, are
two nearly identical oaks. Though only the other has
a plaque, indicating it was awarded to Endre Kabos for
the Individual Sabre event, a local hotel owner indicated
that this one was for the Sabre Team’s Gold Medal.
32
(Detail) Seedling, Endre Kabos’s Olympic Oak, Berettyóújfalu,
Hungary. Kabos received two oaks for fencing in the
Individual and Team Sabre. In a park beside the main road,
in the middle of Berettyóújfalu, are two nearly identical
oaks. Though only this one has a plaque and Kabos’s name,
a local hotel owner indicated that the other was from
the team’s Gold Medal. Kabos was Jewish and in World
War Two was sent to a forced labour camp. He escaped
with the assistance of a sympathetic guard and joined
the Hungarian Underground. Two narratives surrounding
his death are circulating on the internet; he is rumoured
to have lost his life on the Margit Bridge in Budapest
either driving a munitions truck over it or defending it.
33
(Detail) Seedling, Imre Harangi’s Olympic Oak,
Hajdúsámson, Hungary. Significantly, the Hajdúsámson
oak is located next to the memorials in Szabadság
tér (Freedom Square). It seems likely that at the time
of planting a graft was taken from this tree and
planted in Harangi’s nearby home town of Nyíradony.
The Nyíradony oak subsequently died and was then
later replaced, possibly with another graft.
34
(Detail) Seedling, Imre Harangi’s Olympic Oak, Nyíradony,
Hungary. Google translations of Hungarian sources
indicate this tree was a graft taken from Harangi’s
‘original’ oak (a few kilometres away in Hajdúsámson)
and planted here in his hometown as part of the
ceremony surrounding his triumphant return from
the games. The Nyíradony oak subsequently died and
was then later replaced, possibly with another graft.
35
(Detail) Seedling, Herbert Runge’s Olympic Oak,
Wuppertal, Germany. The heavyweight boxer Herbert
Runge planted his seedling at his local stadium in
Wuppertal. A single article from the Westdeutsche
Zeitung, about a freak storm in 2010 that toppled many
other Wuppertal trees but left the Runge’s oak intact,
helped locate the tree. Not many Web entries feature the
name Herbert Runge, but Wikipedia tells us he was “an
eight time German amateur heavyweight champion”.
A cigarette card with a portrait of Runge holding his
oak was photographed by Theodore Allen Heinrich and
published in Düsseldorf in 1936. Runge died in 1986.
36
(Detail) Seedling, Tilly Fleischer’s Olympic Oak, Frankfurt,
Germany. Competing in the javelin, Fleischer won the
first Gold Medal of the games for Germany on August
2, 1936, the first day of competition. She accepted her
medal, laurel wreath and seedling in front of an elated
crowd, accounts of which suggest the next event had to
be postponed as a result of them jubilantly screaming
“Tilly! Tilly!”. Fleischer was well photographed during
this period and many images of her are in existence,
including some which show her holding her oak while
being congratulated by Hitler. Fleischer later planted her
tree at Frankfurt Stadium then known as Waldstadion
(“Forest Stadium”). It was felled for safety reasons, probably
around the age of 50, and this small tree now stands in
its place. Tilly Fleischer lived to a grand old age of 93.
37
(Detail) Seedling, Fritz Bauer, Ernst Gaber, Hans
Maier, Paul Söllner and Walter Volle’s Olympic Oak,
Mannheim, Germany. Awarded for the Men’s Coxed
Fours, this oak was planted at the rowing club where
the team had trained in Mannheim. It is reported to
have suffered damage during bombing raids in World
War Two but later recovered. The rowing club now
holds their annual Gartenfest beneath its branches.
38
(Detail) Seeding, Georges Miez’s Olympic Oak, Winterthur,
Switzerland. Little information concerning Miez has
been uncovered. He won Switzerland’s only Gold Medal
in 1936 for the Men’s Floor Exercises in Gymnastics.
One article suggests that at another time he was also
a personal trainer in Hollywood to Greta Garbo and
Marlene Dietrich. The same article notes that at the
time of his death in 1999 (aged 107) much was made
of Miez’s refusal at the 1936 games to honour the
fascist salute, though it goes on to add that footage
of the games shows many others did the same.
39
(Detail) Seedling, Ödön Zombori’s Olympic Oak, Budapest,
Hungary. Zombori was a Hungarian wrestler, and won
Gold for Freestyle Wrestling at the Berlin Olympics.
Zombori’s oak was planted in a former Franciscan
Monastery in Budapest though this area is now a
domestic neighbourhood. It was pure luck and the help
of an English-speaking nurse, in a nearby hospital,
that meant this grand tree specimen could be located.
Only a small tin plaque marks its significance.
40
(Detail) Seeding, Károly Kárpáti’s Olympic Oak,
Budapest, Hungary. Kárpáti, a wrestler and one of a
number of Jewish medal winners in 1936, won Gold in
the Lightweight Freestyle class; a victory reported to
have been particularly satisfying, as he defeated the
German favourite, Wolfgang Ehrl. Kárpáti’s oak stood
in the grounds of the Hungarian University of Physical
Education (now the Semmelweis University’s Faculty of
Physical Education and Sport Sciences) in Budapest but
has recently been replaced with a much younger tree.
41
(Detail) Seedling, Franz Beckert, Konrad Frey, Alfred
Schwarzmann, Willi Stadel, Inno Stangl, Walter Steffens,
Matthias Volz and Ernst Winter’s Olympic Oak, Freyburg,
Germany. Most likely awarded to the German Men’s
Gymnastics Team this oak is planted near a memorial
to Friedrich Ludwig Jahn—also known as Turnvater
(“father of gymnastics”) Jahn. Jahn was a nationalist
and educator who, in the early 1800’s, developed concepts
around restoring the moral and physical state of his
countrymen through gymnastics. In From Athens to Berlin:
The 1936 Olympics and Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia Michael
Mackenzie, discusses the links between gymnastics,
military pageantry and the “mass ornament”.
42
(Detail) Seedling, Anita Bärwirth, Erna Bürger, Isolde
Frölian, Friedl Iby, Gertrud ‘Trudi’ Meyer, Paula Pöhlsen,
Julie Schmitt and Käthe Sohnemann’s Olympic
Oak, Freyburg, Germany. This small tree is a recent
replacement for the original which was most likely
awarded to the German Women’s Gymnastics Team
and planted near a memorial to Friedrich Ludwig
Jahn—also known as Turnvater (“father of gymnastics”)
Jahn. Jahn was a nationalist and educator who, in
the early 1800’s, developed concepts around restoring
the moral and physical state of his countrymen
through gymnastics. In From Athens to Berlin: The
1936 Olympics and Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia Michael
Mackenzie, discusses the links between gymnastics,
military pageantry and the “mass ornament”.
43
(Detail) Seedling, Site of Alfred Schwarzmann’s Olympic
Oak, Wünsdorf, Germany. Schwarzmann was awarded
three Olympic Oaks in gymnastics, one of which was
planted at the Army Sport School in Wünsdorf where
he was an instructor. Schwarzmann also competed at
the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki as a forty-year-old,
winning a Silver Medal. According to Wikipedia the
Gold Medal winner, Jack Günthard, stated “The victory
should have belonged to Alfred—but he was a German”
(Der sieg hätte eigentlich Alfred gebührt—aber er war
eben Deutscher.) Of Schwarzmann’s other two oaks, one
was planted in his hometown of Fürth and the other,
awarded to the Men’s Gymnastic Team, in Freyburg.
James Constandt’s thesis helped locate two of these sites.
44
(Detail) Seedling, Site of Harold Whitlock’s Olympic Oak,
Hendon School, London, Great Britain. Whitlock won his
Olympic Oak in the 50km Walk after battling through a
bout of possible food poisoning with less than 15km to
go. He planted his oak in front of the gymnasium at his
old grammar school in Hendon however, due to disease,
the oak was felled in 2007 amidst a brief flurry of media
attention. Harold’s daughter in-law Jill Whitlock writes
in a letter to The Telegraph that she collected acorns from
the oak during a visit to the school before it was felled
and used them to grow two oak trees in her garden.
45
(Detail) Seedling, Site of Jack Beresford’s Olympic
Oak, Bedford School, Britain. Jack Beresford won his
Gold Medal for the Double Sculls with teammate Dick
Southwood. Beresford’s oak was originally planted
near the entrance of the School, but some time around
the start of World War Two was moved because of its
undesirable associations with Nazi Germany. Much
later it fell victim to the need for space to accommodate
new school facilities. Martin Humphrys writes in a
letter to The Telegraph that wood from the oak was
crafted for use by the school boating club and that
cuttings were grown and planted around the school
estate and nature reserve. Beresford continued his
association with rowing until his death in 1977.
46
(Detail) Seedling, Urho Karhumäki’s Olympic Oak,
Tervalampi, Finland. In 1936 Olympic Medals were
still awarded in what was called The Arts Competitions
where artists competed in categories such as sculpture,
drawing, painting and architecture. Karhumäki
was awarded Gold in the poetry competition for
his composition Avoveteen (Into free water). Today
only a stump remains at the corner of the small,
private graveyard where Karhumäki is buried.
47
(Detail) Seedling, Lauri Koskela’s Olympic Oak, Lapua,
Finland. Koskela received his Gold Medal in Greco-Roman
Wrestling’s Lightweight Class and planted his oak
in front of his hometown’s municipal building. The
tree is still situated in the Town Hall park, marked
with a memorial tablet and features in Lapua’s
tourism brochure. Wikipedia sources state that in
1944, aged only 37, Koskela fought as a corporal in the
Continuation War and died in the Battle of Vuosalmi.
48
(Detail) Seedling, Aleksanteri Saarvala and Sten Suvio’s
Olympic Oak, Joutseno, Finland. Suvio, who won Gold
in the Boxing Welterweight Class, and Saarvala, who
won his medal in Men’s Horizontal Bar both planted
their oaks at the Stadium in Viipuri. However, on
the 20th of June 1944 as Soviet troops advanced on
the city, a group of Finnish soldiers saved one of
the trees by digging it up and carrying it with them
as they retreated. The oak, possibly Suvio’s, was
re-planted in the soldiers’ home village of Joutseno
where it stands today with many self-sown seedlings
at its base. Viipuri is now the Russian city of Vyborg.
The fate of the other Olympic Oak is unknown.
49
(Detail) Seedling, Ilmari Salminen’s Olympic Oak,
Kouvola, Finland. Salminen won the Gold Medal
in the 10,000m ahead of two fellow Finns. The oak
seedling he was presented with in Berlin did not
survive the trip back to Finland and instead, another
was planted at his home in Kouvola. Salminen’s
and the other Finnish oaks did not fare so well in
the Nordic climate and are noticeably smaller than
their counterparts in other, warmer, locations.
50
(Detail) Seedling, Approximate site of Volmari ‘Vomma’
Iso-Hollo’s Olympic Oak, Kerava, Finland. Iso-Hollo won
his medal for the 3,000m Steeplechase, setting a new
world record in the process. After the Olympics he fell
ill with rheumatism, but kept competing until 1945.
Iso-Hollo died in Heinola in 1969, aged 62. His oak was
planted in Kerava and grew there until it died in the
exceptionally harsh winter of 1940. The terracotta pot that
the seedling was presented in is still with his family.
51
(Detail) Seedling, Approximate site of Gunnar Höckert’s
Olympic Oak, Helsinki, Finland. The surroundings
of Helsinki’s Olympic Stadium, where the oak was
planted, have changed a lot since the 1930s and no
information regarding its exact location is available.
It is however, thought Höckert’s oak died a long time
ago, due to the harsh Finnish climate. Höckert went
to the Winter War, fought between Finland and the
Soviet Union, as a volunteer and just one day before
his 30th birthday was killed on the Karelian Isthmus.
52
(Detail) Seedling, Herbert Adamski, Dieter Arend, and
Gerhard Gustmann’s Olympic Oak, Berlin, Germany.
Awarded for Gold in the Men’s Coxed Pairs, this oak
found its home on a small island in Großer Wannsee
owned by the rowing club, Ruderklub am Wannsee,
which coxswain Arend was a member of. In the 2004
Olympic Games in Athens another club member
Katrin Rutschow also received a Gold Medal, this time
in Women’s Single Sculls. In honour of this the club
planted a second oak on the island next to the original
1936 one, and added commemorative plaques.
53
Installation view, The Dowse Art Museum, 2012.
Photo: John Lake.
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55
Dorothée Brill is a lecturer, curator and writer in
the field of contemporary art and art theory. She
obtained her PhD from the London Consortium
at the University of London and published her
book Shock and the Senseless in Dada and Fluxus
with University Press of New England in 2010.
She has taught at HBK Hochschule für Bildende
Künste, Braunschweig, HFG Hochschule für
Gestaltung, Offenbach and Jacobs University,
Bremen. She worked at Nationalgalerie,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, MMK Museum
für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, and Haus der
Kunst, Munich, amongst others. Her shows
include Gerhard Richter: Panorama (2012), Carsten
Höller: Soma (2010/11), Melvin Moti: When No
Means On (2008/09) and Jana Sterbak: I can
hear you think (2002). She is based in Berlin.
Emma Bugden is a curator based in New Zealand.
She is currently the Programme Manager / Senior
Curator at The Dowse Art Museum, and is a former
Director of Artspace Auckland, Curatorial Director
of Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Curator at City
Gallery Wellington, and Director of The Physics
Room. She has undertaken curatorial residencies
at PROGRAM, Berlin, and NIFCA, Helsinki. She has
written for publications including most recently
the catalogue How To Dress For Local Conditions:
Liz Allan (Govett-Brewster Art Gallery), Bruce Is
In The Garden: Sean Kerr (Clouds Publishing) and
Bruce Barber: Work 1970 – 2008 (Artspace Sydney).
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57
Ann Shelton (MFA, The University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) was born in
Timaru, New Zealand. Shelton’s large-scale,
hyper-real photographic works operate at the
nexus of conceptual and documentary modes,
investigating the social, political and historical
contexts that inform readings of the landscape.
Shelton’s works are published, exhibited, and
nominated for awards internationally and
her photography is included in major survey
exhibitions and publications. Recent exhibitions
include a way of calling at Linden Centre for
Contemporary Arts, Melbourne, curated by Melissa
Keys, and Dark Sky at The Adam Art Gallery,
Wellington, curated by Geoffrey Batchen with
Christina Barton. Shelton is Chairperson of Enjoy
Public Art Gallery, Wellington’s longest running
artist-run space and Director Undergraduate
Studies in Photography at The School of Fine
Arts, Massey University, Wellington.
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Published on the occasion of the exhibition in a forest
by Ann Shelton at The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt,
New Zealand. Exhibition dates: 12th May – 19th August, 2012.
© The Dowse Art Museum 2012
ISBN 978-0-9876685-0-9
The Dowse Art Museum
PO Box 30396, Lower Hutt 5040 New Zealand
www.dowse.org.nz
www.annshelton.com
Publication Design: Duncan Munro
The exhibition in a forest comprised of five images from the
larger ongoing series represented in this publication. Apart
from fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research,
criticism of review as permitted under the Copyright Act,
no part of this publication may be reproduced without
permission. All images are reproduced with permission of
the artist and courtesy of Starkwhite, Auckland. All texts
are reproduced with permission of the writers.
This publication was supported by Massey University
College of Creative Arts and the Massey University Research
Fund. The wider project in a forest was supported by Creative
New Zealand and the Massey University Long Leave Fund.
Ann Shelton would like to thank the many individuals and
institutions who helped locate these trees and who shared
information which assisted in the research for this project.
Thank you also to Claudia Arozqueta, Simone Bilgram, Dorita
Hannah, Melissa Keys, Ryan McCauley, Peter Miles, Duncan
Munro, Christian Nyampeta, Starkwhite, Donna West Brett,
Alan Williams, the staff at The Dowse Art Museum and to
James Constandt for his thesis on the trees.
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