Biography

Robert Rehfeldt was born January 5, 1931 in Stargard (Pomerania). He was raised there and in Berlin and came to a foster family in Bad Ischl (Austria) with the Kinderlandverschickung (in World War II, city children were evacuated to the countryside) in 1940. His mother brought him back to Berlin in 1946. He was a stonecutter and transport worker and studied – after being rejected from studying art in East Berlin – at the College of Fine Art in West Berlin from 1948 to 1953. In the following he worked as designer, drawer for the press media and was an image journalist. Since 1963 he had been working as an independent artist and was part of the experimenting artists in the eastern part of the town. He was member of the Verband der bildenden Künstler der DDR (fine artists association of the GDR) and did a lot of works that were bound to buildings. In the beginning of the 1970s he came into contact with the international Mail Art scene via some Polish artists and Klaus Groh. He succeeded in building up an extensive network of contacts between East and West Europe, the USA and Latin America. Rehfeldt also cultivated a postal art exchange with artists from the closer Fluxus circle, like Wolf Vostell, Robert Filliou and Dick Higgins. In 1975 he asked artists from around the world to design a postcard. With this material he did the first Mail Art exhibition in East Berlin – taking his own exhibition at Galeria Teatru in Warsaw as a model. He inspired and supported the legendary Mail Art exhibitions at East Berlin gallery Arkade in 1978 and at EP-gallery of Jürgen Schweinebraden in 1979. Rehfeldt organised the East Berlin meeting of the 1st Decentralised International Mail Art Congress in 1986. From 1972 to 1987 he directed the circle for drawing and painting “Palette Nord” with participants like Joseph W. Huber.
In 1991 he exhibited – besides own works – his Mail Art project from 1987 in a retrospective at Ephraim-Palais in Berlin.

Robert Rehfeldt died surprisingly on September 28, 1993 after surgery in Berlin.

Links

Schmuggelgut oder Kassiber? (de): http://saardok.sulb.uni-saarland.de/jspview/archive/frei/5be37073-dd93-4e93-a651-72b2ef1c3083/0/archiv.sulb.uni-saarland.de_/de/bibliothek/wir/ausstellungen/2000/aus-24/kuenstler.html
Aus der Traum? Ausstellung in der Galerie Parterre, 2008 (de): http://ausdertraum.wordpress.com/robert-rehfeldt/
Weserburg, 2010/11 (de): http://www.weserburg.de/index.php?id=418&0=