Gustav Metzger

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Gustav Metzger (2009)

Gustav Metzger (born April 10, 1926 in Nuremberg ; died March 1, 2017 in London ) was a stateless artist (painting, photography, installations, performances, actions, texts, manifestos, political actions).

Life

Gustav Metzger was born the son of Orthodox Jews. In 1939 he and his brother Max were saved from the persecution of Jews in Germany during the Nazi era on a Kindertransport to England . He never saw his parents again; they perished in the Holocaust.

He studied art at the Cambridge School of Art in London and moved to an artist community in King's Lynn . He packed the designs, paintings and drawings from this period when he returned to London and henceforth worked as an artistic and political activist.

Metzger also became a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament .

plant

Metzger was a representative of action art . In his work he addressed the destructive potential of the 20th century; he specifically criticized the capitalist system and the art world. He is considered the inventor of "Auto Creative Art", "Auto Destructive Art", "Kinetic Paintings" and "Historic Photographs". In 1999 he realized the work "Travertin / Judenpech" at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, in which he laid a 60-square-meter layer of asphalt in front of the Haus der Kunst building, which was previously sometimes referred to as "Judenpech". Travertine is one of the materials that the National Socialists used in construction projects. The installation existed from March to June 1999.

Exhibitions

Covered pictures by Gustav Metzger at dOCUMENTA (13) , 2012, Kassel

Public collections

Trivia

Pete Townshend , a student of Metzger at Ealing Art College , justified the destructiveness of the English band The Who with Metzger's concept of auto- destructive art .

Publications

  • Damaged nature, autodestructive art. Coracle, London 1996, ISBN 0-906630-05-3 (Text: Gustav Metzger. Essays: Andrew Wilson, Clive Phillpot).
  • Manifestos, writings, concepts. Schreiber, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-88960-040-9 .
  • Sabine Breitwieser (Ed.): Gustav Metzger. Story story. (Exhibition May 11 to August 28, 2005 Generali Foundation, Vienna). Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2005, ISBN 3-7757-1649-1 (Hatje Cantz), ISBN 3-901107-46-0 (Generali Foundation). (Bibliography pp. 285–301, foreword by Dietrich Karner, introduction by Sabine Breitwieser, texts by Justin Hoffmann, Gustav Metzger, Kristine Stiles , Andrew Wilson, with 35 color and 150 b / w illustrations).
  • Tribute to Gustav Metzger. Curated by Justin Hoffmann. 2 CD. BR radio play and media art. intermedium records, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-939444-63-3 .
  • Gustav Metzger, Hans Ulrich Obrist : Gustav Metzger - Hans Ulrich Obrist. König, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-86560-498-9 .
  • Samuel Dangel, Sören Schmeling (Eds.): Gustav Metzger - Years without Art. Modo, Freiburg im Breisgau 2012, ISBN 978-3-86833-101-1 .
  • Gustav Metzger, Act or Perish! - A retrospective. Produzioni Nero, o. O. 2016, ISBN 978-88-97503-87-3 .

Web links

Commons : Gustav Metzger  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Artist Gustav Metzger died . dpa message on Focus Online , March 2, 2017, accessed on March 3, 2017.
    Mark Brown: Gustav Metzger, pioneer of auto-destructive art, dies aged 90 , in: The Guardian , March 2, 2017, accessed on March 2, 2017. March 2017
  2. ↑ Gustav Metzger Father of Auto Destructive Art dead . JNi Media announcement on The Jewish Press website , accessed March 3, 2017.
  3. ^ Catrin Lorch: Gustav Metzger. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . April 16, 2016, p. 24.
  4. ↑ see Gustav Metzgers: Travertin / Judenpech - Interventions in die Architektur - Exhibition, from September 18, 2015 to September 18, 2016 (archive of exhibitions) , accessed on December 7, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Pete Townshend, the notorious guitar smasher" of the rock band The Who, calls him his "teacher". Gustav Metzger. Story story . Press release of the Generali Foundation on kunstaspekte.de, May 2005, accessed on March 3, 2017.
  6. ^ Gustav Metzger, Act or Perish! - A retrospective . Book presentation on the Nero Magazine website, accessed on March 3, 2017 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Butcher, Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH before March 2nd, 2017
Place of death London