{"id":209,"date":"2011-06-06T07:40:37","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T07:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/?p=209"},"modified":"2011-09-04T18:06:27","modified_gmt":"2011-09-04T22:06:27","slug":"gustav_metzger_the_remix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2011\/06\/gustav_metzger_the_remix.html","title":{"rendered":"Gustav Metzger: The Remix"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gustav Metzger: <\/strong>Historic Photograph No.1: Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto<\/em>, <\/strong>April 19-28, 1943, 1995\/2009\/2011<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Metzger Rescued from the Footnotes of Art History<\/strong><\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Gustav Metzger’s first U.S.<\/st1:country-region> exhibition ever, the thought-provoking “Historic Photographs,” is now at the New<\/st1:place> Museum<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:placename> (235 Bowery, NYC, to July 3, 2011). All 12 sculptures, forming a set originally made in 1995-96, are exhibited together for the first time. <\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Ironically, until now we have known these sculptures — which are “about” photography as well as about the horrific events represented – only through photographs. At the New Mu which I may now be ready to call the New Muse, the two images that make up Terror and Oppression<\/i> are fully visible, but so large and so intentionally oddly placed that it is difficult to take them in: marching Nazi soldiers, and orderly rows of Hungarian Jews undergoing selection on the Auschwitz Ramp. <\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Photography needs to be made strange or we do not see it. It is our wallpaper. Gigantic blowups in a narrow space work well here, since the events portrayed are themselves too big to grasp. We want to pull away from the insanity, but here we can’t. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Other images in this succinct exhibition require far different methods of defamiliarization. Hitler Youth<\/i> is welded between two steel plates. Hitler Addressing the Reichstag After the Fall of France <\/i>is sandwiched between Formica and steel. Both have to be imagined. Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto<\/i> is partially blocked by rubble. The photo blow-up in Kill the Cars<\/i> is accompanied by a real automobile that imitates the look of the car being smashed in the picture behind it. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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\"floorsharpened.jpg\"<\/font><\/o:p>If you weren’t at the New<\/st1:placename> Museum<\/st1:placetype> last Wednesday, you missed the spectacle of yours truly crawling under a yellow tarp that had been laid over a giant photo blow-up of Jews in Vienna<\/st1:city> being forced to scrub the pavement on their hands and knees: To Crawl Into – Anschluss, Vienna<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, March 1938<\/i>. The condition of viewing the huge news photo mimics the positions of those in the photograph. Yes, one of my silver Crocs was caught in the tarp and I had to be rescued by an attendant. Later, however, I made my way behind the curtain shielding an image of the Temple Mount Massacre<\/i> without mishap.<\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Do the various photo-obstructions, framing, or distancing devices represent memory? Forgetfulness? False-consciousness? Censorship imposed by ever-increasing images of horror? The numbness of overexposure?<\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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All of the above. And more.<\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/o:p><\/p>\n

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You should also know there’s another version of To Walk Into – Massacre on the Mount, Jerusalem<\/i> in the storefront offices of e-flux (41 Essex St., to July 30.) Shown uncovered by a curtain, here the obstruction that makes you “see” the image is purely the placement in a narrow space complete with worker on duty at his desk, surrounded by shelves, files and other office accoutrements. <\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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For further but important dislocation, do not leave without going into the cellar exhibition space and participating in Metzger’s MASS MEDIA: Today and Yesterday<\/i> (2011). A pile of newspapers is in the center of the room. From newspapers on a work table you may cut out news items, photos or headlines according to the categories “credit crunch,” “extinction,” or “the way we live now,” and then affix your choice with magnets to a billboard running along one wall. <\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Can’t see the connection between the “Historic Photographs” sculptures and MASS MEDIA.<\/i> The first uses blow-ups of newspaper photos; the second uses actual newspapers. Read on. Metzger is a complicated artist.<\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n


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Things You Need to Know<\/font><\/font><\/b><\/span><\/font><\/o:p><\/p>\n

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The 85-year-old Metzger does not offer his work for sale through art galleries. His last gallery exhibition was “Paintings and Drawings 1945-1960” at the Temple Gallery in London<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> in 1960. <\/font><\/font> <\/font><\/o:p><\/p>\n

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Nor does this London-based artist ship his art. He believes that the air transport of art and of what we in Artopia call artlings (“star-lings” with dollar signs in their eyes) is a waste of nonrenewable fuel. Thus he has founded <\/a>Reduce Air Flights<\/a> (RAF). He doesn’t think it is proper for any of us to fly to this biennial or that biennial. Or to transport art by jet. This is his latest cause. All of the works at the New<\/st1:place> Museum<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:placename> were made at a distance through his specifications and instructions and will be destroyed when the show closes. RAF, he says, is also an objection to “the massive commercial growth of the art industry.”<\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Doesn’t seem like RAF will cause much of a stir because a recent 848-person poll conducted by 60 Minutes\/Vanity Fair<\/i> reveals that if given a choice, 61% of respondents said it would be easier to do without air travel than give up the internet, compared to the 31% who would sacrifice internet for air travel. But like many artists, Metzger thinks symbolically and acts symbolically. He thinks in four-dimensions; he thinks in contradictions.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Why would any artist be against air travel? Aren’t we supposed to be global? And yet this instigator of Auto-Destructive and Auto-Creative Art, light shows, newspaper wall-installations and all things ephemeral at the age of 85 is a hero to some younger artists – a few of whom are jetsetters themselves or would like to be — because of his commitment to social action and, yes, because of his participatory and time-bound art.<\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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No doubt about it. Metzger is an original.  <\/span><\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Paintings that destroy themselves? Splashing hydrochloric acid on sheets of plastic, the results last less than 20 minutes. Here’s a film of him making one of his Auto-Destructive paintings in London in 1965: <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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