Gustav Metzger
History History
Press Conference:
10 May 2005, 10.30 a.m.
Opening Reception: 10 May, 2005, 7 p.m.
11 May through 28 August, 2005
In an extensive
exhibition, the Generali Foundation will show Gustav Metzger’s
importance as an artist and activist from the 1960s to the present.
He has continually provided important impetus as an artist and also
as an initiator and political activist. This retrospective provides
the first opportunity in Austria—and, in this comprehensive form,
the first internationally—to encounter his versatile involvement
and largely unknown oeuvre.
Generali
Foundation
Wiedner Hauptstraße 15
1040 Wien, Austria
Telefon +43 1 504 98 80
Telefax +43 1 504 98 83
foundation@generali.at
http://foundation.generali.at
Gustav Metzger
History History
Press Conference: 10 May 2005, 10.30 a.m.
Opening Reception: 10 May, 2005, 7 p.m.
11 May through 28 August, 2005
In an extensive exhibition, the Generali Foundation will show Gustav
Metzger’simportance as an artist and activist from the 1960s to
the present.Gustav Metzger, who was born in Nuremberg in 1926 and now
lives in London, is an
enigmatic figure. He has co nt inually provided important impetus as
an artist and also as an initiator and political act ivist. This retrospective
provides the first opportunity in Austria—and, in this comprehensive
form, the first internationally—to encounter his versatile involvement
and largely unknown oeuvre. It extends from the early manifestos and
Lecture/Demonstrat ions to his political engagement, his critique of
the art industry,
through to the work group of Historic Photographs and his current works
with the
medium newspaper.
In 1959, Gustav Metzger used political and ecological issues, such as
the nuclear arms race and the increasing environmental destruction,
as points of departure for the development of his co ncept of Auto-Destructive
Art . In his first manifesto, he defined this as a „form of public
art for industrial societies“, which thematizes the destructive
potential of the 20th century. Transformation processes are at the center
of Gustav Metzger’s works: sculptures that fall to pieces or erode,
canvases corroded by acid, rubbish in trash bags, or car exhaust in
acrylic glass containers. The materials used by Metzger originate exclusively
from the industrial context and machine production. Their process -oriented
and self-destructive use is meant as an attack on capitalist values
and the art market. These processes become visible, among other ways,
in his experiments with liquid crystals. His psychedelic Liquid
Crystal Projections , which he also presented at a concert of the band
The Cream in London, illustrate Metzger’s concept of Auto -Creative
Art.
The Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS), which he initiated in London
in 1966, clearly showed that the theme of destruction was also important
for other artists of his generation. At this legendary meet ing of artists,
Metzger enabled the first international appearance of the Viennese Actionists.
Additio nally, he also influenced the vocabulary of pop culture: Pete
Townshend, the famous „guitar t rasher” of the rock band
The Who, called Metzger
his „teacher“.
Generali Foundation
Wiedner Hauptstraße 15
1040 Wien, Austria
Telefon +43 1 504 98 80
Telefax +43 1 504 98 83
foundation@generali.at
http://foundation.generali.at
Already in the 1970s, Metzger was concerned with problems of environmental
pollution and the progressing development of computer technology. In
1974 he refused to participate in the exhibition Art into Society –
Society into Art and instead, in the exhibition catalogue called for
a three-year „art strike ”. In 1981 he organized, together
with Cordula Frowein and Klaus Staeck, a counter -exhibition to the
show Westkunst in Cologne and
protested against the version of contemporary art propagated there.
Gustav Metzger was also involved to the same extent as his artistic
work in theoretical lectures, symposia, and political forums. Also of
importance is his confrontation with nazism, through whose repercussions
Metzger lost a large part of his family. Gustav Metzger was always interested
in daily papers and their design as a sign of reality
and also a mirror and storage medium for history. In his Historic Photographs
, a workgroup that was created in the second half of the 1990s, he asks
the question of how we deal with human catastrophes documented in media
images. By problematizing the visibility of these images, he lays bare
their ambivalent position between voyeurism, trivialization, and sympathy.
Curator: Sabine Breitwieser
Assistant Curator, exhibition coordinator : Cosima Rainer
Publication for the exhibition (German and English editions)
Gustav Metzger. Geschichte Geschichte
Gustav Metzger. History History
Edited by Sabine Breitwieser for the Generali Foundation, Vienna
Foreword by Dietrich Karner, ed itorial by Sabine Breitwieser,
essays by Justin Hoffmann, G ustav Metzger, Kristine Stiles and Andrew
Wilson.
Illustrated chronology, numerous color and b&w illustrations.
