I was very sorry to learn of the death of Gustav Metzger earlier this week. Metzger was a remarkable artist and a great friend of CND and the anti-nuclear movement. We mourn his loss and send condolences to his friends and family. I last saw him at Peter Kennard's recent exhibition at the Imperial War Museum. Our thanks to Erica Bolton for this brief account of Gustav's life and work.
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, he studied art in Cambridge, London, Antwerp and Oxford - for the much of this time associated with the artist David Bomberg.
By 1958, Metzger was becoming heavily involved in anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist movements and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; in 1960 he was a founder member of the Committee of 100 and 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.
At the heart of his practice, which spanned over 65 years, are a series of constantly opposing yet interdependent forces such as destruction and creation. He 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.