Gustav Metzger

"The exhibition draws together the themes and methodologies that have informed the London-based artist’s practice from 1959 until the present day. The broad cross-section of works on view include Metzger’s auto-destructive and auto-creative works of the 1960s, such as his pioneering liquid crystal projections; the ongoing Historic Photographs series, which responds to major events and catastrophes; and later works exploring ecological issues, globalisation and commercialisation. Film footage of seminal performances and actions are exhibited, as well as a new, participative
installation using the archive of newspapers Metzger has been collecting since 1995."
see serpentine gallery website

(Media)

I was particularly interested in the following piece, Historic Photographs: To Crawl Into - Anschluss Vienna March 1938 1996 (here above), where one had to crawl under a big piece of fabric to be able to see a photograph on the floor and on how that changes our relation/interpretation to its content. A grainy photograph of people kneeled down, the association with the horrors of the second world war is immediate, even before reading the title, Anschluss, the annexation of Austria. I looked for the image on google images today, and realized the importance it had to involve my whole body in the experience of this art work, how fragile and pathetic I felt and how strange it was to realise that those portrayed on the image were looking much more confused and anxious... the privacy of my gaze and the impossibility of seeing the whole image...