Gustav Metzger

Background

Gustav Metzger was born on April 10, 1926 in Nurnberg, German Empire (present-day Germany).

Education

Metzger began studying art, first at the Cambridge School of Art in 1945 and later he received a grant from the United Kingdom Jewish community to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp between 1948 and 1949.

Career

In 1959, Metzger published the first auto-destructive manifesto "Auto-Destructive Art", which was given as a lecture to the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1964.

In 1962 Gustav participated in the Festival of Misfits, organised by members of the Fluxus group at Gallery One in London.

In 1966 Metzger organized the seminal event of artistic activities, forming around the theme of destruction — Destruction in Art Symposium.

Between 1969-1972, Metzger served as the founding editor of PAGE, the bulletin of the Computer Arts Society. In this role, he worked to expose the relationship between the military and capitalism, and highlight the social and ethical implications of technology. He wrote papers on emerging computer technologies and developed a number of artworks, using plotters and programming software.

In the 1970s, Metzger became increasingly disillusioned with the art world. His contribution to the 1974 exhibition "Art into Society/Society into Art" at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, was to call for "Years without Art, 1977–1980". Later, Gustav left Britain to pursue research and curatorial projects in Germany and the Netherlands, returning to London in the early 1990s.

In 1998, the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford organised the first UK survey of Metzger’s work. The exhibition marked the beginning of growing worldwide recognition of his unique contribution to 20th-century art.

During the period from 29 September to 8 November 2009, his works were exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery.

During his lifetime, Gustav also lectured at Ealing Art College, where Pete Townshend was one of his students.

Achievements

• Metzger’s greatest contribution to art history was the Auto-Destructive Art movement, for which artists were to dismantle and wreck objects as a form of protest.
  
  Gustav was one of the co-founders, together with the philosopher Bertrand Russel, of the antiwar protest group Committee of 100.
  
  He also developed the principle of auto-creative art and explored the idea of using computer technology for art early on.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Gustav Metzger: Act or Perish!: A Retrospective
  • Auto-destructive art: Metzger at AA

• installation

  • Historic Photographs: To Crawl Into - Anschluss, Vienna, March 1938

  • Liquid Crystal Environment

  • Historic Photographs: To Walk Into - Massacre on the Mount, Jerusalem, 8 November 1990

  • Historic Photographs - Hitler - Youth, Eigenschweisst

  • Historic Photographs: Til we have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land

  • Historic Photographs: No. 1 - Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, April 19-28 days, 1943

  • Historic Photographs: Kill the Cars, Camden Town, London

  • Historic Photographs: Trang Bang, Children Fleeing South Vietnam, April 1972

  • Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art

• painting

  • Historic Photographs: Jerusalem, Jerusalem

  • Table

  • Homage to the Starving Poet

• sculpture

  • Null Object

Politics

Metzger was actively involved in protest against nuclear armament from the late 1950s.

Views

Metzger campaigned against air travel and cars, and resisted owning a telephone, but he didn't speak out against technology or science.

Quotations: "We appeal to arts professionals from all disciplines to take a stand against the ongoing erasure of species. It is our privilege and our duty to be at the forefront of the struggle. There is no choice but to follow the path of ethics into aesthetics."

Membership

Gustav was a member of the Art and Science and New Science working groups of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science.

Personality

Gustav Metzger was a committed environmentalist and a vegetarian.

References

• Gustav Metzger: Historic Photographs
• Gustav Metzger: Decades 1959-2009
• Gustav Metzger: Writings: 1953–2016