Curated by Sabine Breitwieser

Although influential and highly regarded after a nearly fifty-year career, Gustav Metzger remains an elusive figure—not surprising, perhaps, for one who proposed that, for three years beginning in 1977, artists should not produce, sell, or exhibit work in order to protest commercialism. Metzger’s art is sensitive, committed, and demanding, and his early practice of autodestruction (an artwork’s capacity to destroy itself over time) constitutes a sustained, unapologetic attack on a dealer system from which he has kept a determined distance. This retrospective of about thirty works—installation, photography, sculpture, and more—is accompanied by a catalogue with essays on various aspects of Metzger’s work by Justin Hoffmann, Kristine Stiles, and Andrew Wilson.

— Michael Archer