TateShots Issue 15 - Gustav Metzger

Gustav Metzger's career has spanned sixty years of art and political activism. He pioneered Auto-Destructive art and famously held an 'art strike' between 1977-1980. He was also involved in the radical Fluxus movement. In 1962 his simple idea of displaying all the pages from a popular national newspaper as an art installation was rejected from an exhibition for being too politically charged. This year Tate Modern invited him to restage the piece, and he told us why newspapers should be held up for scrutiny.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Metzger
• Tate
• Art

[themartinmanisdead]

@almanacofsleep Impressive.

[almanacofsleep]

@themartinmanisdead he stuck it on the wall

[MIDJOBZ]

its shit and im being honest

[Jess5186]

more to the point what is easthectics?? Aesthetics maybe..?

[Jess5186]

One of the most gentle and amazing people I have ever met - his dematerialisation of the art object as commodity and anti capitalist critical art gestures are inspired

[Graphicals]

Taught Pete Townshend at art school..

[Ludo1100]

As a series of work i see your point that the artist is important and sometimes does come into it. agree to disagree.

[rbonillavid]

In my head the artist is equally important as the artwork they produce. Let's just agree to disagree.

[Ludo1100]

Just because hes respected in someway means that the can get away with this? your judging the art on the person when really should it not be judged on its own? and also for all you know i could be a famous contemporary artist. Anyways everyone has their own opinion on art.

[rbonillavid]

Once you have 60 years of experience down your belt you can get away with this. If you and I tried it, it wouldn't be worthwhile. You have to examine his older work and put it into context. It's easy to write someone off. People always think they're being clever by criticizing contemporary art but in reality they don't know what they're talking about.