The London-based artist Gustav Metzger was born in 1926 into a family of Orthodox Jews in Nuremberg. After most of his family had been arrested and deported to Poland, he and his elder brother were able to flee the Nazi regime and escape to England with the help of the Refugee Children Movement. Later, Metzger studied art at the Cambridge School of Art in London. Since the late 1950s, he has been an important representative of action art. His works are closely associated with the concept of autodestructive art, and between 1959 and 1964 he published five manifestos on the subject. A reaction to the nuclear threat, the progressive destruction of the environment, and the degradation of art to a mere commodity, autodestructive art seizes upon existing destructive potential and transforms it into creativity. Dedicated to the aesthetics of the ephemeral, this creative process embodies a radical rejection of art as object.
The influence of Metzger’s theories of autodestructive art extends to the very roots of pop culture. Pete Townshend, guitarist for the rock band The Who, became legendary for destroying his guitars on stage in a direct allusion to Metzger.
As initiator of the international
In addition to his own artistic work, Metzger is an avid participant in theoretical lectures, symposia, and political forums. The rigorousness of his creative approach and his unwillingness to compromise with the art establishment have led to Gustav Metzger’s outsider status, which he has occupied and defended to the present day.