Gustav Metzger

The artist's biography as told by Metzger himself, a leader of the Auto-Destructive Art and Art Strike movements

This publication is a chronological retelling of the life and work of the visionary artist and radical thinker Gustav Metzger (1926-2017) in his own words. He recounts the key moments in his life and career: his Jewish Orthodox childhood in Nuremberg before the Nazis came to power, his arrival in England as part of the Kindertransport, his early development as an artist, and how he came to develop the idea of Auto-Destructive Art and later to coorganize the Destruction in Art Symposium in 1966 and the Art Strike of 1977-80. He also talks about his activism to combat environmental destruction as well as his deep admiration for Vermeer. Published to coincide with the PST ART exhibition, this singular volume is a monument to the rediscovery of Metzger in the 21st century, thanks to the urgency of his artistic position and to the enthusiasm and commitment of Metzger's interlocutor in this book, Hans Ulrich Obrist.