Review of Art into Society – Society into Art: Seven German Artists at the ICA

09/02/16
Art into Society – Society into Art: Seven German Artists
ICA Fox Reading Room, London
19 January – 6 March 2016


Can art bring about reform? Maybe even revolution? How might it be used as a politically motivated tool? These questions were at the forefront of seven key German artists’ minds in the early 1970s, and an exhibition of their work, held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1974, opened them out to a wider international audience.

In its series of archival exhibitions, displayed in the Fox Reading Room, the ICA has currently mounted a grand review of the exhibition Art into Society – Society into Art: Seven German Artists, which took place from 29 October – 24 November 1974 and was organised by the then ICA curator, Norman Rosenthal, and the writer and curator Christos M Joachimides. The research and display have been jointly – and thoroughly – pulled together by Lucy Bayley and Juliette Desorgues. On show are photographs of the installation and surrounding events; vitrines with the catalogue and printed material relating to the exhibition; photocopied press coverage from the time; and select audio and video material, including extracts from a general discussion on politics in Germany that took place at the ICA on 19 November 1974.


Read the review here

Interview with Gustav Metzger

28/07/14

Gustav Metzger: interview

Gustav Metzger: Lift Off!

Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge

24 May – 31 August 2014

“When I was young I wanted art that would lift off, that would levitate, gyrate, bring together different – perhaps contradictory  – aspects of my being. The search for – the need to encapsulate varying kinds of contradictory elements, the urgency of stopping sharp – extinct – twist and: razor-sharp endpoint. After the experience, we expand, reconnect with a normality which is not the same as it was. But normality once changed is not the same.” [Untitled, handwritten note by Gustav Metzger, p.2 exh. cat.]

Although Metzger (born in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1926) is better known for his Auto-Destructive Art, he was simultaneously developing its counterpart, Auto-Creative Art, in the same lecture demonstrations and manifestos that took place from 1959. The current exhibition of his works at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, focuses on the lesser-known Auto-Creative works, contextualising these against film and archive footage. It is a significant homecoming for the artist who studied at the Cambridge School of Art in 1945.

Studio International was lucky enough to meet Metzger in his London Fields studio. After a brief chat about the magazine, with Metzger recalling his two contributions from March and October 1969, we turn to talk about his work, his motivations, and his scientifically driven techniques.

To read the interview, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/gustav-metzger-interview-kettles-yard-auto-destructive-auto-creative-art-liquid-crystal