Gustav Metzger interviewed in January 1999

by Kay Roberts & filmed by Deborah May as part of the project yoyo in his exhibition GUSTAV METZGER at MOMA Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BP

Curated by Kerry Brougher and Astrid Bowron

25 October 1998 –10 January 1999.

Gustav Metzger Interviewed by Kay Roberts in 1999 (Excerpt)

Gustav Metzger sits in front of his exhibition at MOMA Oxford.

Kay Roberts: Ready? Would you like to expand on the political part of your life.

Gustav Metzger: The central preoccupation has been society, it remains, in other words; what is outside, what is there, that is the ongoing concern and as we’ve said, early on, the need to face up to that war and the Nazi past and present.

When I was becoming an adult, that is the turning point in my life, when I faced up to the horror and the danger of it all. And there was a movement within me to respond and the only way, it was valid, the only way that I could justify, was to do something about it. To fight against it, to oppose it, and that impulse impulsion, has not left me.

There were times when I lived just for myself. There were years when I was only concerned with being an artist, if you like. Only concerned with being happy, or only involved with deep sadness, when I was just living. But ongoing there is this concern with the outside and I don’t suppose it will ever depart from me, and soon enough, I realised there was a system, a system of capitalism, which was (pauses)  - give me a minute – yes as I was saying, it is the capitalist system which is the issue. I said that, let me start on that in a moment:

So, this concern with the conceit of capitalism has gone way beyond this original idea of becoming a revolution, against it, moved into art.

But the need to confront the system has kept its momentum. The need to expose it remained as strong now, in a way stronger now than it has ever been, because we now see the global capitalism, as it were, has conquered, is dominating more or less the entire world.

And the more it dominates, the bigger it gets, the more dangerous, the more crude it becomes. Also, the more difficult it is to oppose it. But the need to oppose it is very much present in my mind and I talk about it in private and whenever I get the opportunity to talk in public. It is a subject always at the forefront of my concern. Communicating that concern, and again, there is the continuity I’m happy to say, between the early part of my consciousness in its development and my present position in society; standing up for what I regard as important issues.

Capitalism now has reached the point of where being so powerful it dominates nature, human nature. It is injecting through biotechnology and bioengineering, endless misuse of nature, the dominance of nature. Largely with the aim of crude, immediate, profitability.

We are waking up to the danger of capitalism more and more, because the subject is being discussed at last in a fairly open manner. The negative side of it, is that it has become so powerful that it is probably unstoppable. But it being unstoppable it is tearing down the future. Both of human nature and nature as such.

And we are in a desperate stage of civilisation, where we’ve lost it, I believe we’ve gone too far too quickly and we are going to lose out on nature, both outside us and within us.

KR: Profoundly pessimistic.

GM: Yes. I am far more pessimistic now than before. We’ve gone through the crisis of the power struggle, the possibility of nuclear annihalism by nuclear weapons, but we’ve gone through to a phase of seemingly endless nuclear terror, possessed by nations large and small, have possible terrorist agencies. So, everybody agrees from the point of nuclear danger, we are in a worse stage than we were in the cold war period. As for subjects such as global warming, it has taken over. We are already being destroyed. It is not a question of ‘will we be destroyed’. The balance with nature that we had, a very delicate one, and we have got to the point where we’re lost, the chance of balance ……

There is a pause in filming so that Gustav Metzger can discuss the next section of the interview. Deborah May trials some ideas while he looks through the documentary magazines shown in the exhibition.

Gustav Metzger continues ….

When we get the food, animal manipulation, when we get the human manipulation to the extreme state of cloning. Which is inevitable somewhere. And we are talking about physical realities. And equally it is the responses that we have. When you live with the Nazis, when you live with the horror …. a catastrophe, people change. And they change in all kinds of ways. And whatever way we change, it’s unhelpful. It contains danger, it contains, if you like, impossibilities. You are confronted by impossibilities, where, when, in the end, we will cease to be bombed? We area kind of shattered, we are closed in by the world, becoming more and more monstrous. More and more unhabitable. This is the perspective; we are trapped in this. Then that’s why in the earlier stage of our interview, of our discussion, it’s only by fundamentally eliminating the present way of science and technology, by giving it up. By saying we ‘reject you’, and living much, much simpler, much closer to the land, closer to ourselves. That I think there is any chance of escape. By accepting this we are heading for ultimate disaster. It cannot continue very, very much longer. And so, this is the challenge that I would pose after these decades of my being able to live and confront the reality. Fundamental change, or it will be over, quite soon, much, much sooner than we might anticipate. It’s not a question of saying, ‘it will change for the worse’. It has changed for the worse. It has, what we’ve got is unacceptable.

KR/DM: We agree

GM: Just one more question. I see you have one more question. I don’t mind.

KR: I know you are incredibly busy and was wondering if you have thoughts for future works you are mulling over. What are your …

GM: Well, I am engaged in – don’t put this – I am just telling you this ….

By the way when you present this, will it be in the form of an interview, will people be able to know it was an interview.

KR: Yes.

GM: So, I can say ‘you asked me’.

KR: Yes

GM: About my new works.

KR: Yes. Can you tell us about future plans for your work.

GM: The next two works that are being prepared have to do with this exhibition, in as far as they deal with history. They are closely connected to historic photographs, in my opinion. And the first work planned goes to Munich, where I am invited to take part with 25 other artists in a very large project of works made for this month, the spring months of this year 1999.

I propose a work which will go in front of the Haus der Kunst. The Haus der Kunst is the biggest exhibition space in Munich for touring exhibitions. And the Haus der Kunst was built for the Nazi regime and inaugurated in  1937 by Hitler and his colleagues. And there I want to make the association to the Nazi past. And it’s a work which will be placed on the right-hand side of the entrance, on the ground. And it’s a bit tricky to explain, in terms of it’s meaning. In Germany asphalt, asphalt has also another name, which is called Jüdenpach, which means, more or less, bad luck of the Jews. Jewish Bad Luck. I’m proposing that they put a strip of asphalt on the right hand side of the entrance as part of my proposal and will be called Travertine. Travertine is the favourite building material of the Nazis. Jüdenpach,

So, I am associating the stone, which is more or less used in other building, with Bad Luck for the Jews. And people will be forced to walk, more or less, on that Jüdenpach, as they enter the museum. That’s the point. They could also evade going onto the Jüdenpach, by stepping on the left-hand side.

The visitor will be confronted by the challenge of stepping on the asphalt or going round it, and still entering the museum. There are two doors, one on the left, on eon the right. And my asphalt will be on the right, facing the museum, the building.

Now the other work planned is for Nuremberg, this exhibition is moving to Spacex, Exeter, then it is planned to go to Nuremberg in the middle of 1999. And in the middle of the museum there is a very large room, there is one space that is exceptionally large, in relation to the other spaces of the Kunsthalle Nuremberg. And I am proposing, I am discussing, in a new work which directly relates to this project (we’re talking about) of the block of newspapers on, ….., and this is in a way two halves. You can enter it through one door, which is in the middle of the room, there are a king of two choices, left and right of this door there are two spaces. You go through this door and you exit by another door, opposite this door into 2 more rooms. So, in that room I am proposing we fill it completely with newspapers.

Instead of being blocked out with newspapers, so that you can’t do anything.

Having blocked it out, then we are going to try to cut it out, then we are going to try to cut a path through, from one door to the other. So that there will be a kind of channel where people can actually walk through to the rest of the exhibition. Now we are discussing it and that would be the second new work. Which as I said, directly relates to historic photographs because we will, of course, show historic photographs.

And there, you have, if you like, historic photographs because there would be thousands of major images within those uncountable pieces of paper, blocked up in that room, which will not be visible. Although there is this other connection, we’ve got historic photographs which you would never see, blocked out …. Totally sealed off within a concrete barrier.

But, of course, let me add, in both of these works, of course, are deeply concerned with the German past and the German Jewish past. The work in Munich very directly but inn other work also directly, in as much as these would be German newspapers, certainly the serious, the main newspapers, without some reference to Jews or to Hitler or to the Nazi past or to the persecution of the Jews, Intellectuals, to Gipsies or WWII. Either there is a direct reference, or there is a book review, or a review of a film. It’s almost impossible, in other words, these newspapers will be full of the other problem, the problem number one in Germany. How to relate e to the Jews. What is the past, what is the Nazi past. So in that sense it will be like a kind of blood bank of German guilt, if you like, of German responsibility, of German problems. The inescapable problems of Germany and inescapable problems that face Germany and Germans. In that sense, of course, Nuremberg is the ideal venue for creating that work, using of course, German technicians, German curators and the German public.

KR & GM discuss Nuremberg as they have both recently visited the city.

Gustav Metzger then walks around the exhibition at the MOMA Oxford with the filming continuing by Debby May.