The artist Gustav Metzger has died at his home in London, it has been announced.
Gustav Metzger was born in Nuremberg, Germany on 10 April 1926 to Polish-Jewish parents and arrived in Britain on the Kindertransport in 1939 – much of his immediate family perished in the holocaust. From 1945-53, Metzger studied art in Cambridge, London, Antwerp and Oxford – for much of this time associated with the artist David Bomberg. By 1958, Metzger had become heavily involved in anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist movements. 1960 he was a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s Committee of 100. This led to a short imprisonment in 1961 with Bertrand Russell and other members of the Committee for encouraging mass non-violent civil disobedience.
Metzger’s political activism provided the foundation for his first artist manifesto in 1959, titled ‘Auto-destructive Art’, which he described ‘as a desperate last-minute subversive political weapon…an attack on the capitalist system…(an attack also on art dealers and collectors who manipulate modern art for profit.)’ Auto-destructive art — a public art form — sought to provide a mirror of a social and political system which Metzger felt was progressing towards total obliteration. Metzger became a key figure in the underground art scene of London in the 1960s, alongside figures such as John Latham and David Medalla. He initiated the infamous ‘Destruction in Art His practice, which spanned over 65 years, continually returned to issues of social self-destruction and environmental issues. Metzger has had recent solo exhibitions at MAMAC, Nice (2017), MUSAC, León (2016),Tate Britain, London (2016), Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2015), CoCA Torun, Poland (2015), Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2015) Kunsthall Oslo and Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2015), Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2014), Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2014) and Serpentine Gallery, London (2009). His work is included in This Way Out of England: Gallery House in Retrospect currently at Raven Row, London. His Liquid Crystal Environment is on display at Tate Modern, and his solo exhibition Remember Nature continues at MAMAC Nice until 14 May.
3 March 2017
