Beale Trail – Documents of a Chase

Photographs
(archival pigment prints,
each 42 × 62 cm),
videos, documents,
found objects, glossary,
2011

On the Ambivalence of Obsessions,
Conversation between Wiebke Elzel and Brigitte Kölle,
in: Beale Trail – Documents of a Chase,
Textem Verlag, Hamburg, 2011

Glossary, flyer, 4 pages,
21 × 29,7 cm, 2011

Glossary, flyer, 4 pages,
21 × 29,7 cm, 2011

Newspaper article from the Lynchburg Virginian,
April 15, 1885 (facsimile)

Newspaper article from the Lynchburg Virginian,
April 15, 1885 (facsimile)

Hotel The Arlington,
Lynchburg, Virginia, July 9, 2011

Hotel The Arlington,
Lynchburg, Virginia, July 9, 2011

Beale Box, Jones Memorial Library,
Lynchburg, Virginia, July 8, 2011

Beale Box, Jones Memorial Library,
Lynchburg, Virginia, July 8, 2011

Beale Box, Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Libraries,
Roanoke, Virginia, July 14, 2011

Beale Box, Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Libraries,
Roanoke, Virginia, July 14, 2011

Titelblatt des Argosy Magazine von 1964,
Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Libraries,
Roanoke, Virginia, July 14, 2011

Titelblatt des Argosy Magazine von 1964,
Virginia Room, Roanoke Public Libraries,
Roanoke, Virginia, July 14, 2011

Map from the estate of Peter Viemeister,
Private archive, Bedford County, Virginia, July 13, 2011

Map from the estate of Peter Viemeister,
Private archive, Bedford County, Virginia, July 13, 2011

Remains of Buford’s Tavern,
Montvale, Virginia, July 11, 2011

Remains of Buford’s Tavern,
Montvale, Virginia, July 11, 2011

Title page of the Beale Papers, photocopy of the original pamphlet,
Estate of William F. Friedman,
Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia, July 22, 2011

Title page of the Beale Papers, photocopy of the original pamphlet,
Estate of William F. Friedman,
Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia, July 22, 2011

1st Beale cipher, photocopy of the original pamphlet,
Estate of William F. Friedman,
Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia, July 22, 2011

1st Beale cipher, photocopy of the original pamphlet,
Estate of William F. Friedman,
Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia, July 22, 2011

Historical documents, reproductions,
archival pigment prints, 21 × 29,7 cm, 2011

Historical documents, reproductions,
archival pigment prints, 21 × 29,7 cm, 2011

Handwritten memoirs of William F. Friedman,
Marshall Research Library,
Lexington, Virginia, July 12, 2011

Handwritten memoirs of William F. Friedman,
Marshall Research Library,
Lexington, Virginia, July 12, 2011

No. 8 of 12 from: Excavations or Vaults, 2011

No. 8 of 12 from: Excavations or Vaults, 2011

Beale Trail, Bedford County, Virginia, 23.7.2011,
Video, 3:56 min

Beale Trail, Bedford County, Virginia, 23.7.2011,
Video, 3:56 min

Stills from the video:
Beale Trail, Bedford County, Virginia, July 23, 2011,
3:56 min

 

Stills from the video:
Beale Trail, Bedford County, Virginia, July 23, 2011,
3:56 min

 

From the magazine Treasure World, 1968

From the magazine Treasure World, 1968

Sharp Top, Peaks of Otter,
Bedford County, Virginia, July 15, 2011

Sharp Top, Peaks of Otter,
Bedford County, Virginia, July 15, 2011

Historical documents, reproductions,
archival pigment prints, 21 × 29,7 cm, 2011

Historical documents, reproductions,
archival pigment prints, 21 × 29,7 cm, 2011

Attempts to solve the Beale ciphers,
Beale Box Jones Memorial Library,
Lynchburg, Virginia, July 9, 2011

Attempts to solve the Beale ciphers,
Beale Box Jones Memorial Library,
Lynchburg, Virginia, July 9, 2011

Bealton, Fauquier County,
Virginia, July 22, 2011

Bealton, Fauquier County,
Virginia, July 22, 2011

Buchanan, Botetourt County,
Virginia, July 18, 2011

Buchanan, Botetourt County,
Virginia, July 18, 2011

Fincastle courthouse archives,
Botetourt County, Virginia, 18 July 2011

Fincastle courthouse archives,
Botetourt County, Virginia, 18 July 2011

Documents from 1806 and 1821 with the signature of a Thomas Beale,
from the Fincastle Courthouse, Botetourt County, Virginia,
found objects (certified copies), 46.5 × 31.3 cm, framed, 2011

Documents from 1806 and 1821 with the signature of a Thomas Beale,
from the Fincastle Courthouse, Botetourt County, Virginia,
found objects (certified copies), 46.5 × 31.3 cm, framed, 2011

Document from 1821 with the signature of a Thomas Beale (detail),
from the Fincastle Courthouse, Botetourt County, Virginia,
Found object (certified copy), 46.5 × 31.3 cm, framed, 2011

Document from 1821 with the signature of a Thomas Beale (detail),
from the Fincastle Courthouse, Botetourt County, Virginia,
Found object (certified copy), 46.5 × 31.3 cm, framed, 2011

The Beale Papers pamphlet (A conversation with Dr. Matyas),
Video, 1:51 min, 2011

The Beale Papers pamphlet (A conversation with Dr. Matyas),
Video, 1:51 min, 2011

Stills from the video:
The Beale Papers pamphlet (A conversation with Dr. Matyas),
Haymarket, Virginia, July 21, 2011,
1:51 min, 2011

 

Stills from the video:
The Beale Papers pamphlet (A conversation with Dr. Matyas),
Haymarket, Virginia, July 21, 2011,
1:51 min, 2011

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Brigitte Kölle: Your exhibition at the Arthur Boskamp Foundation is titled Beale Trail—Documents of a Chase. Your exhibits refer to the famous golden treasure that was allegedly hidden by Thomas J. Beale around the year 1820. Can you explain what this story is all about?

Wiebke Elzel: Yes, it is actually a quite complicated story, which I came upon about a year and a half ago in a book on secret writings. In 1885, a 23-page pamphlet with the title The Beale Papers was published in the town of Lynchburg, Virginia. This brochure contains information on a golden treasure supposedly buried by a Thomas J. Beale and his partners in the mountains of Bedford County, Virginia around 1820. It was said that the gold stemmed from a gold mine in Colorado, which Beale and his friends had discovered by chance while hunting buffalo. They brought the gold to Virginia, their home state, hid it there and returned to Colorado to prospect for more gold. Beale left a locked iron box with his friend Robert Morriss in Lynchburg, in which three sheets with secret writing were hidden that revealed the location of the treasure. Beale later wrote to Morriss that he should open the box if he did not return in ten years at the latest. And of course he never reappeared. Morriss opened the box after around twenty years, found the secret writings and spent the rest of his life trying to decode the ciphers. After failing to succeed, he finally gave them to a younger friend, who also spent twenty years with deciphering attempts. He actually succeeded in decoding one of the ciphers with the aid of the American Declaration of Independence as a key.But that didn’t get him much farther. When he was finally exhausted after many years, he wrote the pamphlet mentioned above, in which he published everything he knew about the story, including the three ciphers.
Since the Beale Papers were published, there have been numerous attempts until today to resolve the secret of the ciphers and find the treasure. There’s a whole host of so-called Beale researchers spending decades of their lives trying to solve the mystery. But since the 1980s, more and more researchers believe that the story is fictitious, a kind of literary hoax. And these researchers also often spend decades trying to prove their theory.

BK: You traveled to the United States and engaged in research on location; you spoke with persons who have dealt with the Beale treasure, visited relevant places, and compiled material possessing a documentary character. How would you describe your artistic approach?

WE: Dealing with obsessions plays a pivotal role in my artistic work. I am fascinated by people who are obsessed with a certain issue or activity to such an extent that their lives are determined by it. I often invent these kinds of figures. With this project, it’s different: I’ve assumed the role of a researcher who, in analogy to the Beale researchers, seeks to get to the bottom of the story. This led to my becoming similarly involved in the facts and theories making up the Beale Papers story. But, of course, I pursued this research work predominantly as an artist, which leads to the paradox that everything I do during this real research work is always already a fiction in a certain respect.

BK: What is interesting in your work is that you immerse in the story in the place of the viewer, so to speak. In some films, you yourself can be seen or your voice can be heard off-screen. This reminds me a bit of the repoussoir figures in the painting of the Renaissance or Romanticism, which reinforce the effect of depth in the picture and simultaneously facilitate the viewer’s access to the image.

WE: Yes, one could say that the viewer watches me doing research. Or, in other words, he or she watches a Beale researcher at work.

BK: And this Beale researcher herself becomes part of the story by entering into the notes of other Beale researchers …

WE: Exactly! A couple of days ago I talked with the Beale researcher Richard Greaves on the phone. We met this summer in Roanoke, where he gave me a map that he used for his research as a present. After we had met, he had a few new ideas on the Beale ciphers. And in the two studies that he subsequently wrote, he describes our encounter, which was just as inspiring and fascinating for him as it was for me.

BK: In this manner, an enormously varied network of references and cross-references emerges, into which the viewer is also drawn. Suddenly everything becomes promising and charged with meaning, and be it some caves or banal American suburban homes which can be found in your photographs. The border between what we believe we know and that which could be hidden “behind” or “below” it is blurred. Truth and fiction are inextricably linked.
One last question: In what do you see the relevance of this Beale treasure and the quest for it, which has been going on continuously for more than 150 years? What, in your opinion, does the fascination of the treasure hunt stand for? And what fascinated you so much that you intensively dealt with it and still continue to do so?

WE: The reason why the story doesn’t cease fascinating people certainly lies to a large extent in the insolubility of the mystery—if the treasure were found, or the ciphers solved in a convincing way, or if someone succeeded in proving evidence that the whole story is a fabrication, the fascination would fade because there would be no reason for further research.The story would then become historical. But the wonderful thing about the Beale Papers story is that it appears impossible today to find real evidence for either theory. Even computer-based analyses of the ciphers, in part conducted by highly professional cryptologists, led to no result. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that the ciphers are not authentic, since the encryption method of the ciphers is very special and not necessarily solvable with the help of computer programs. The genealogical research on the persons involved also provides no secured answers. As far as the treasure is concerned, it is indeed conceivable—apart from the possibility that it is still hidden somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains—that it has already been found and secretly brought away. Or, of course, that it never existed.
As to the last part of your question which has to do with my own fascination: What particularly interested me in the beginning was not primarily the treasure or hunting for it, but the obsession of the Beale researchers. I am fascinated by the ambivalence that lies in it. To be obsessed with something can reach pathological, self-destructive dimensions—and, at the same time, it is precisely our passions that release enormous amounts of energy inside of us. The uncanny thing is that we do not always know in which phase of our obsession we currently are. The Beale Papers story is an excellent metaphor of this phenomenon.

Hohenlockstedt, November 12, 2011