“Gustav Metzger: Writings 1953-2016” Edited by Mathieu Copeland (JRP Editions) 2019

 

“Gustav Metzger: Writings 1953-2016” Edited by Mathieu Copeland (JRP Editions) 2019

I first became aware of Gustav Metzger's name due to Pete Townshend of The Who smashing his guitar against an amp while on the stage. Usually, when one reads about the violence in a Who concert, Metzger's name is mentioned. Even as a child, which was the first time I was aware of The Who, I knew that there was something totally unpractical about smashing an expensive instrument into the ground, or even worse, through the PA system. Still, the theater or spectacle of such an action taking place was exhilarating to me. Perhaps due to the built-up violence at the end of their music set and again, the waste of a perfectly good instrument was destroyed. When Pete was in Art School, he met and studied under the artist Gustav Metzger. Pete took Metzger's complicated and textural process and brought it into the Pop music world. Beyond that, Metzger spent a lifetime organizing and writing press notices about how he saw the arts as in action, not standing still. 

Destruction and creation can share the same dinner table, in that it's two life forces at work. Sometimes against each other, but I see it as a workable union. Metzger, very aware of the effects of World War II in his life, as well as the threat of the atomic bomb and the landscape of the Cold War - knew that destruction was very much only inches away. One can make that into an art form or a large canvas to do one's art on the intensity of such a danger. There is a liberating feeling about specific types of destruction. Metzger, through his visual art and writings, conveys that world. 

Writings 1953-2016 is very much of a work by an artist and not a prose writer. This in itself is an exciting prospect because one can feel the intensity of his thoughts and feelings on how art is produced in a somewhat Capitalist society. Capitalism itself is a combination of creation and destruction. For it to live as an institution, it must also destroy. Sexually it's an S&M relationship. Some must lose in the Capitalist system, and therefore we have the art by Metzger. 

Metzger is very much a political figure in the arts. Reading through this book. He spent a great deal of time organizing conferences, talks/lectures, and art exhibitions. He was wary of the Gallery/Artist system due that is based on business. Not ideas or institutions have a hard time coming to terms that the physical aspect of the artwork is changing and not always on the physical medium of the canvas. Metzger wanted to transform the world, and I suspect that he tried to squeeze all of the poison out of its body or system. Therefore, Auto-destructive art is a very positive method of reaching visionary, moral, and healthy art for society. 

The book is beautifully produced by JRP Editions in a functional design that is somewhat elegant in the manner of a manifesto zine but of excellent quality. The majority of the writings here are press releases Metzger wrote under the banner of his various organizations that he co-started or worked with, such as DIAS and PAGE. Metzger also connected with art communities such as Fluxus and organized lectures and exhibits for Yoko Ono during her Avant-garde period in London and New York City. The Metzger book is essential for one who collects documents of the 'art' 20th-century.  

Saul Steinberg "untitled" (February 21 - April 28, 2019) TOTAH

 

Dry point table, 1981
Mixed media on wood 
12 x 24 inches (45 x 60 cm)

When I hear the two words together, Saul and Steinberg, I immediately think of him as the illustrator for New Yorker Magazine. This is true, but one can't measure a person's worth from just one source. Looking at the catalog of a show that took place in 2019 at the TOTAH Gallery in New York City, I become aware that there is a larger landscape that Saul Steinberg worked on. Going through this catalog, which is available at the gallery, and in an edition of 300, it's a great jaunt through an artist's career that is small in size but focused on his greatness. 

The humor in his drawing is very tongue in cheek but sophisticated in that Manhattan manner that I love so much. Trotzky in New York, 1982 is an image of Trotsky with an apple pie and coffee at a New York Automat, dated January 28, 1917. That year, he spent 10 weeks in the city, and to see such a Russian iconic Marxist figure in an Automat is funny alone. Still, Steinberg's drawing is very sweet, and there is an absurdity mixed in. I don't know the origin or why this work was done. It could have been for a publication or article on Trotsky in New York, or it can be just a witty commentary on the clash of cultures. Perhaps the automated world of Capitalism within the framework of a Marxist enjoying his pie and cafe. 

I'm intrigued with his works on wood, mainly through the medium of ink, collage, paint, and pencil. One, Dry Point Table (Illustration above), he gives equal space to each image. It reminds me of Marcel Duchamp's Box in a Valise, which is his entire works put in a suitcase. In a series of works on wood, which resembles looking at a tabletop, Steinberg is not complete, but there are personal items that are placed neatly. The viewer can connect the pen, the portraits, and an image of a book opened to Steinberg's art. 

"untitled" is an excellent survey. The presentation in the catalog is very straightforward and lets the images speak for themselves.   You can loate the book here:  Saul Steinberg "untitled" shop

January 11, 2021, by Tosh Berman

 

January 11, 2021

A quote from the artist Eva Hesse: “Life doesn’t last; art doesn’t last. Born in Hamburg, Germany in 1938, and forced to flee the Nazis in 1938. her sister and Eva had to be separated from their parents and went to the Netherlands. Six months later, the family reunited, went to England, and then settled into Manhattan’s Washington Heights in 1939. Her parents separated, and her father remarried in 1945, but sadly Eva’s mom committed suicide in 1946. In 1969, Eva Hesse was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and she died in 1970. Her work as an artist lasted for a decade, and her death came at the age of 34. 

At 18, she interned at “Seventeen” Magazine, while taking classes at Art Students League, and eventually to Yale University where she received her BA in 1959. At Yale, she studied under Josef Albers at that time, influenced by Abstract Expressionism. Back in Manhattan, she became a close friend to the artist Sol LeWitt.  In the early 60s, she mostly did abstract drawings but then made these sculptures, made out of fiberglass, latex, and plastics. Her sculptures were delicate, textural, and sensual.

My understanding is that her work is challenging to preserve due to the material she used, beyond fiberglass. It seems latex ages, but then that’s Life. The quotation at the start of this essay, I think, is true. Still, I think it’s more about the nature of an idea of a piece and knowing that a material that one uses can not always last. Yet, for the moments it’s here, the work is fantastic. To preserve one’s history through a medium whatever it’s music, painting, sculpture, or cinema, there will always be the issue of how to maintain the work for future generations. Then again, I’m obsessed with the thought that art physically changes, as well as people. I don’t think art is meant to be frozen in time but lives in different formats and systems. It’s fantastic that I listened to music from the radio, then the vinyl LP album, to CD, and now streaming. The same as seeing a movie in a theater, watching it on a VHS tape, and then DVD. The format changes art. When we see a painting in person, it’s nothing like seeing that same painting in a magazine or book. The texture is different. 

With respect to my writing, I consistently edit and rearrange the text as time marches on. I feel work is never finished. Except when the artist/writer dies, then the work is completed. Curators and museums have a knack for showing old art as if something new. You put a work of art that is familiar to the viewer, but it’s next to an obscure piece of that artist, then the context can change. LeWitt mentions that his good friend wanted her art to be preserved, and more likely it will, but then again, it’s like re-doing that piece. Art does die, but it never stops and moves on to other platforms, but nothing is ever the same. 

January 2, 2021, by Tosh Berman

 “From a bumbling citizen through the poetry of the machine to the perfect electric man.” As the leader of The Kinoks, I’m obsessed with how the world is seen or perceived by my fellow citizens. My buddy, Sergei, came from the theater, but I’m a believer in filming life as it happens. I see the camera lens as my second eye. “I’m an eye. A Mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it.” The world we perceive is always put in a neat narrative. I have been told countless times that there is a beginning, a middle, and an end.” I understand that, but I can’t see why not start off with an end, and then a beginning, and end with the middle. The film drama is the opium of the people… down with bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios…long live life as it is!”

I spent a lifetime photographing girls because, to me, I fit right into that world. I have problems with such activities as remembering instructions or difficulty organizing one’s time and dealing with deadlines. Which, oddly enough, affects my work as a cameraman/photographer. I was aware of my dyspraxia as a child. I pretty much spent my life covering that aspect of my life by being loud and never shying away from a situation. Women love me because they pick up on my struggle. There is nothing sexier than one who has difficulty doing even the simplest things in life. A former girlfriend of mine described me as “the king lion on the Savannah: incredibly attractive, with a dangerous vibe. He was the electricity, the brightest, most powerful, most talented, most energetic force behind the camera.”

Once an outsider, always an outsider. I realize I would never be invited to join the club, so why even pretend that I’m even interested in joining that gang. My little unit, The Kinoks, sees the world as we make it, not how others define the landscape. I’m very suspicious of those who use aesthetics to make their work more pleasurable. “A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and becomes a portable object or surface disengaged from the outside world.” The purpose of the image-maker is to engage oneself with the outside forces. 

I can never follow a simple cooking recipe, but I know how to use the ingredients and bring out a new vision or presence for the world. - Tosh Berman.