Book Launch and Talk: Hans Ulrich Obrist on Gustav Metzger

Join us for a conversation with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist to celebrate the launch of the new publication ‘Gustav Metzger: Interviews with Hans Ulrich Obrist’ (2024) at Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles. 

On the occasion of ‘Gustav Metzger. And Then Came the Environment,’ the first-ever Los Angeles exhibition and the second major US presentation dedicated to Gustav Metzger’s oeuvre, please join us on Sunday 15 September at 11 am for a conversation with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of the Serpentine, and Kate Fowle, Curatorial Senior Director at Hauser & Wirth.  

The talk marks the launch of this new publication – ‘Gustav Metzger: Interviews with Hans Ulrich Obrist’ – on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition presented in conjunction with the Getty’s PST ART initiative, ‘Art & Science Collide.’ 

View the new exhibitions after the talk at the opening celebration from 12 – 3 pm in Downtown LA.

This event is free; however, reservations are recommended. Please register here. 
 

About Hans Ulrich Obrist 
Hans Ulrich Obrist (b. 1968, Zurich, Switzerland) is Artistic Director of the Serpentine in London, and Senior Advisor at LUMA Arles. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show ‘World Soup’ (The Kitchen Show) in 1991, he has curated more than 350 shows. 

Obrist’s recent publications include ‘Ways of Curating’ (2015), ‘The Age of Earthquakes’ (2015), ‘Lives of the Artists, Lives of Architects’ (2015), ‘The Extreme Self: Age of You’ (2021), and ‘140 Ideas for Planet Earth’ (2021), ‘Edouard Glissant: Archipelago’ (2021), ‘James Lovelock: Ever Gaia’ (2023) ‘Remember to Dream’ (2023), and ‘Une vie in Progress’ (2023). 

About the Exhibition 
‘And Then Came the Environment’ presents a range of Metzger’s scientific works merging art and science from 1961 onward, highlighting his advocacy for environmental awareness and the possibilities for the transformation of society, as well as his latest creative experimental works, created in 2014. The exhibition title comes from Metzger’s groundbreaking 1992 essay ‘Nature Demised’ wherein he proclaims an urgent need to redefine our understanding of nature in relation to the environment. Metzger explains that the politicized term ‘environment’ creates a disconnect from the natural world, manipulating public perception to obscure pollution and exploitation caused by wars and industrialization, and that it should be renamed ‘Damaged Nature.’  

Exhibited for the first time in Los Angeles, works here include the earliest film documentation of Metzger’s bold chemical experiments on the South Bank in London (‘Auto-Destructive Art: The Activities of G. Metzger,’ directed by H. Liversidge, 1963); his first mechanized sculpture with Liquid Crystals—’Earth from Space’ (1966)—and the stunning, large-scale projection, ‘Liquid Crystal Environment’ (1966), one of the earliest public demonstrations of the material that makes Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs), now omnipresent in our computer, telephone and watch screens.  

‘And Then Came the Environment’ also presents early kinetic projects Metzger developed in the Filtration Laboratory of the University College of Swansea in 1968 (‘Dancing Tubes’ and ‘Mica Cube’); various iterations of his projects against car pollution including the model ‘Earth minus Environment’ (1992); and the Light Drawing series (2014), using a plotter machine, a technology he first used in 1970, with fiber-optic light directed by air or hand. 

The exhibition will be complimented by a new short film created by artist Justin Richburg, who animated Childish Gambino’s 2018 hit ‘Feels like Summer,’ which references climate change. Richburg’s piece was inspired by and responds to Metzger’s 1992 essay ‘Nature Demised.’ The animation represents the first time Metzger’s ideas have been directly expressed through a new medium, thus reflecting his interests in ongoing transformation and his conviction that younger generations were the most essential, urgent audiences for his work. In 2012, five years before his death at the age of 90, Metzger wrote: 
 
‘The future of the world is what we are after. We start with the young and then when the young are twelve, fifteen, and then twenty-one, they can enter politics, and if they have got this initiation/introduction to key issues...it will make an enormous difference to the future of the world.’ 

‘And Then Came the Environment’ coincides with two major European institutional exhibitions devoted to Metzger’s oeuvre and contributions: ‘Gustav Metzger. All of Us Together,’ curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Vassilis Oikonomopoulos and Arthur Fouray, at LUMA, Arles, France (30 June 2024 – onwards) and ‘Gustav Metzger,’ curated by Susanne Pfeffer and Julia Eichler, at Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt, Germany (27 July 2024 – 5 January 2025). 

About the Publication 
On the occasion of the exhibition, Hauser & Wirth Publishers will release ‘Gustav Metzger: Interviews with Hans Ulrich Obrist,’ edited by Karen Marta. Drawing from more than two decades of conversations with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine, this richly illustrated volume offers a comprehensive overview of Metzger’s life, approach to art, and political activism. With a candor that comes from speaking to someone who knows him well, Metzger discusses his childhood in pre-Second World War Nuremberg, his participation in and co-organization of the 1966 Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS) after his move to London, and his visionary thinking about environmental destruction, among many other topics. This panoramic book, which is complemented with a new, rigorously researched chronology, is a vital resource for Metzger scholars and newcomers alike.

About PST ART 
Hauser & Wirth is part of PST ART as a Gallery Program Participant. Returning in September 2024 with its latest edition, 'PST ART: Art & Science Collide,' this landmark regional event explores the intersections of art and science, both past and present. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about 'PST ART: Art & Science Collide,' please visit pst.art.