Exhibition Making LUMA Westbau Hans Ulrich Obrist Archives Chapter 4 Gustav Metzger

Hans Ulrich Obrist Archives: Gustav Metzger
All of Us Together
Marina Abramović
Maria Thereza Alves
John Armleder
Bianca Bondi
Judy Chicago
Abraham Cruzvillegas
Minerva Cuevas
Mimosa Echard
Cerith Wyn Evans
Liam Gillick
The Institute of Queer Ecology
Joan Jonas
Koo Jeong A
Jean-Jacques Lebel
London Fieldworks (Bruce Gilchrist & Jo Joelson)
Paul McCarthy
Gustav Metzger
Yoko Ono
Cornelia Parker
Benoît Piéron
Pedro Reyes
IX Shells
Martine Syms
Diana Thater
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Natsuko Uchino

13.06–07.09.2025
Co-curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Arthur Fouray, in close collaboration with the Gustav Metzger Foundation

LUMA Westbau
First and second floors
Zurich, Switzerland
https://westbau.com/en/program/hans-ulrich-obrist-archive-gustav-metzger
Installation views: Gina Folly

‘All of Us Together’
Gustav Metzger, October 2014

For its fourth chapter, the Hans Ulrich Obrist Archives at LUMA Westbau presents an exploration of the work of Gustav Metzger (born 10 April 1926 in Nuremberg, died 1 March 2017 in London), an essential figure in ecology and activism in the arts. Drawing upon a two-decade-long friendship between Metzger and Obrist, the exhibition unfolds over two levels, providing both an immersion into never-before-seen archives and a panorama of the artist’s most iconic works, the pertinence of which is ever more urgent.

During their first studio visit in 1991 in Glasgow, Douglas Gordon drew Hans Ulrich Obrist’s attention to the works of Gustav Metzger and John Latham, both pioneers and indispensable inspirations for a then-emerging generation of artists in the United Kingdom. After consulting Norman Rosenthal’s catalogue of Art into Society – Society into Art (1974), which featured his contribution, a statement calling for Years without Art (1977–1980), Obrist attempted to reach Metzger by all available means.

He would find himself waiting until Metzger, one day, came to the Serpentine Gallery to see him and Julia Peyton Jones during the first iteration of the exhibition Take me (I’m Yours) (1995). After Metzger’s Historic Photographs were featured in Damaged Nature: Two New Works and Documents (1995) at the independent space workfortheeyetodo in London, Suzanne Pagé, Laurence Bossé, and Hans Ulrich Obrist added these works to life/live: la scène artistique au Royaume-Uni en 1996, de nouvelles aventures [life/live: the artistic scene in the United Kingdom in 1996, new adventures, 1996], at the ARC – Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Their first recorded conversation took place in 1997 at London’s legendary Café Cosmo, which had served as a sanctuary for political exiles during the conflicts of the 20th century. Their dialogue continuously unveiled Metzger’s commitment and activist principles. In 1999, Barbara Vanderlinden and Hans Ulrich Obrist invited him to take part in Laboratorium, a project inspired by Bruno Latour that brought together scientists and artists at the Provinciaal Fotografie Museum in Antwerp. There, Metzger reactivated Drop on Hotplate (1968/2024), a work consisting of a basic, everyday hotplate mounted at chest height on a metal stand, onto which a drop of water is slowly released, causing a spontaneous and random reaction in response to the heat.

Their bond intensified after Hans Ulrich Obrist relocated to London. Metzger was a key participant in the Serpentine’s first marathon, the Interview Marathon (2006), conceived with Rem Koolhaas. Cultivating mystery, Metzger used public telephone boxes as his means of communication, turning the Serpentine into something of a personal post box during his 2009 retrospective Decades: 1959–2009 in 2009. He returned in 2014 to co-curate the Extinction Marathon: Visions for the Future.

The sentence ‘All of us together,’ the title of this exhibition, was composed in 2014 for Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Handwriting Project. It is part of a collection of notes Metzger titled Extinction Handwritings. The exhibition compiles the questions Metzger provoked during his life and career, manifested in the presentation of archival material through around eight hours of interviews, handwritten and printed documents, alongside personal notes and other ephemera. The archival presentation complements an in-depth exhibition that brings together works such as Liquid Crystal Environment (1965/2025) and key works from the Historic Photographs series. A series of posters, created in tribute to Metzger, highlights the significance of his work and its importance in confronting the crises of today and tomorrow. This exhibition, posthumously, is a way to convey the inspiration Metzger felt for Luc Hoffmann’s way of protecting the climate and the bioregion of the Camargue. He always dreamed of meeting the co-founder and first president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and founder of the Tour du Valat research centre in the Camargue. Like Luc Hoffmann (born 1923 in Basel, Switzerland – died 2016 in the Camargue, France), Gustav Metzger will also remain, through his works and his thoughts, a cornerstone of the ecological movements of the 20th and 21st centuries.

From the postcards of his childhood to the artists’ editions of the World Soup [The Kitchen Show] catalogue, the artists’ postcards of Hotel Carlton Palace: Chambre 763 in 1993, the do it project (1993–), Take Me (I’m Yours) (1995–), to the artists’ posters of Utopia Station in 2003 and the artists’ posters of the IT’S URGENT project produced by LUMA between 2019 and 2020, Obrist has consistently sought to invite artists to express themselves through media dedicated to sharing. Following the previous tributes from artists to Édouard Glissant and Agnès Varda included in the exhibitions of Hans Ulrich Obrist Archives at LUMA Arles and LUMA Westbau (2021–2024), the fourth chapter dedicated to Metzger presents homages by Marina Abramović, Maria Thereza Alves, John Armleder, Bianca Bondi, Judy Chicago, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Minerva Cuevas, Mimosa Echard, Cerith Wyn Evans, Liam Gillick, Joan Jonas, Koo Jeong A, Jean-Jacques Lebel, London Fieldworks (Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson), Paul McCarthy, Yoko Ono, Cornelia Parker, Benoît Piéron, Pedro Reyes, IX Shells, Martine Syms, Diana Thater, Rirkrit Tiravanija, The Institute of Queer Ecology, and Natsuko Uchino.
Index