Wrong-wrong-wrong

Gustav Metzger, Wolf Vostell and Al Hanson
Photo credit: Tom Picton
Lent by the artist's family
Image taken from Tate Britain's website

Have you ever seen about 200 people simultaneously bending forward in their seats, literally straining to try and hear every word uttered by someone sitting on a stage meters away? It's quite a sight and you would have witnessed this had you attended the Talking Art event with Gustav Metzger at Tate Modern on the 29 March. Indeed, the founder of auto-destructive art had a few chosen words to impart on his rapt audience.
Gustav Metzger is bemused by the current state of the world. To be exact, he has been bewildered by the vicious cycle of conspicuous consumption and waste that we perpetuate for over 60 years. Amazingly, none of that time has eroded his sharp mind, or his conviction that our way of life is wrong-wrong-wrong. In fact, it appears that time is on the artist's side, considering that his work is just as relevant now as it was 30 years ago. Not only is he generating new projects, but he also gets to stage ideas he had decades ago such as Project Stockholm, originally conceived in 1972 for the UN Environmental Conference in Stockholm produced for the 2008 Sharjah Biennale.

His ease with the contradictions that will arise over the course of such a long career is exceptional: he can without a phone, a television and a computer but he is not averse to having someone else Google for him. He believes in the potential of the internet to create powerful networks outside of the realm of capitalism but he doesn't have to let the technology via which internet is accessible dominate his life. He is convinced that humankind is bent upon self-destruction and yet he has faith in the younger generations' intelligence and potential. He is concerned with artists making a living yet he is appalled by the price a piece of canvas can fetch in the current overinflated art market. In other words, he doesn't pretend to hold the answers to the questions raised by his work but he knows the questions need to asked over and over again until enough people think about them.

Feeling like I've been kicked in the head, ideologically of course, I forgo an expensive espresso at the museum's cafe and walk home, still a bit hunched over from all that straining forward but thankful for Gustav Metzger's definition of the Avant-garde: A desire and need to go beyond the existing. I'm all for it.