Gustav Metzger:
The Conscience of the Art World

Time: Friday 26 January 2018, 10:30 - 18:00
Venue: Het Nutshuis, Riviervismarkt 5, 2513 AM Den Haag
Entry: 10/15 €

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Speakers biographies

Judit Bodor (1975) is an independent curator based in Glasgow and active internationally. Among her current roles and projects, she is co-editor of the small press Gordian Projects, co-curator of the international ‘Left Performance Histories’ exhibition at nGbK, Berlin, and co-producer of Scotland’s contribution to the 16th Architecture Biennale in Venice. Her interest in research and practice is curating performance and ways in which archival collections can influence exhibition making and vice versa. In 2015/2016 she curated ‘Silent Explosion: Ivor Davies and Destruction in Art’ at Amgueddffa Cymru, National Museum Cardiff which was also the major output of her doctoral research at Aberystwyth University on curating historical performance art in the Museum. Often working collaboratively with artists she has also produced site-specific and participatory events and installations, artist residencies and creative learning projects for over 15 years including ‘John Newling: The Market of Hidden Labours’, York 2013 and ‘Under the Paving Stones, the Beach’, Leeds, 2011. Holding postgraduate degrees in Art History from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest and Arts Management from Dartington College of Arts, her professional roles since 1999 included Research Archivist at Artpool Art Research Center, Budapest, Programme Curator at East Street Arts, Leeds and Lecturer at Dartington College of Arts, York St John University and Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Mathieu Copeland (1977) has been developing a practice seeking to subvert the traditional role of exhibitions and to renew our perceptions of these. Amongst many others, he co-curated the exhibition ‘VOIDS, A Retrospective’ at the Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Kunsthalle, Bern, and edited the anthology VOIDS. He curated ‘A Choreographed Exhibition’ at the Kunsthalle St Gallen & La Ferme du Buisson, ‘Soundtrack for an Exhibition’ at the Musee d’Art Contemporain, Lyon, monographies exhibition of ‘Alan Vega’, ‘Gustav Metzger’ and ‘Phill Niblock,’ or again ‘A Mental Mandala’ at MUAC, Mexico City. He initiated and curated the series ‘A Spoken Word Exhibitions’, ‘Reprise’ and the ‘Exhibitions to Hear Read’ presented in 2013 at MoMA, New York. Among his recent exhibitions, in 2016, Copeland curated ‘A Retrospective of Closed Exhibitions’ at Fribourg’s Kunsthalle, Switzerland. In 2012-2013 he was the invited curator at the Jeu de Paume, Paris, and was the guest-curator at Le Plateau, FRAC Ile-de-France Paris, 2014-2015. He published the critically acclaimed anthology and manifest publication ‘Choreographing Exhibitions’ (Les Presses du Réel, 2013), and realized ‘The exhibition of a film’ – an exhibition as a feature film for cinemas. In 2017 he edited the anthology ‘The Anti-Museum’ co-published by Koenig Books. His forthcoming book includes in 2018 the anthology of Gustav Metzger’s writing he edited, published by JRP Ringier.

Ivor Davies (1935) studied painting at Cardiff. Early 'happenings', 1954. Edinburgh University PhD on Russian Art, 1975. Lecturer in History of Modern Period, School of Art History, Edinburgh University, 1963-78. Head of Department of Cultural Studies, Newport, 1978-88. Numerous academic art historical writings, books, papers, reviews. Founding Curator Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh University, 1970-78. Met Metzger 1965; helped formulate DIAS 1966: read three papers, chaired most sessions. Performances for DIAS and elsewhere (many filmed),1964-70. Pioneer explosive art in Britain. Recent performances include 'Pyrogenesis' (remake of explosives organ) 2016; 'Ancient Mariner Not an Opera', 2016. About 100 joint exhibitions, about 60 solo exhibitions. Founding member of Beca, since 1980s. After mixed exhibitions, including Tate and Wolfsburg, solo exhibitions include largest exhibition ever presented in Wales, at the National Museum of Wales, 1915-16.

Elizabeth Fisher (1973) is an independent curator and a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge, UK. Previously, she was Curator of Exhibitions and Collections at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, where, in 2014, she curated the exhibition ‘Gustav Metzger: Lift Off!’ She has edited numerous publications on modern and contemporary art, including ‘On Not Knowing: How Artists Think’ (Black Dog Publications, 2014) and ‘The Experimental Generation: networks of interdisciplinary praxis in British art, 1950-70’ (Interdisciplinary Science Reviews no.42.1, July 2017).

Andrea Gregson (1968) is a London based artist, curator and Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at University for the Creative Arts, Farnham. From 1995 to 1997, she was awarded a Postgraduate Fellowship at the Academy of Fine Art, Warsaw, Poland and an MA Fine Art from Manchester Metropolitan University (1998).
Her research is an ongoing inquiry into obsolescence, materiality, value and site, using making as a knowledge generating process for thinking and invention. She is preoccupied with sculptures ability to fold time and space into an object, the intertwining of its story, the manufacturing process and artists’ labour. In 2016, she realised ‘Casting Space: Sculpture from the Anthropocene’ at University of East London supported by Henry Moore Foundation. Andrea co-curated Gustav Metzger’s ‘Facing Extinction: The Conference’ at UCA Farnham, and curated his solo show at James Hockey Gallery and Herbert Read Gallery (2014), which was livestreamed at the ‘Extinction Marathon’, Serpentine Gallery, London. Afterwards, she co-curated Gustav’s collective artwork ‘Remember Nature’ in 2015. Gregson has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in Romantso, Athens (2017); AVA Gallery, London (2016); Patrick Heide, London (2014); Concrete, Hayward Gallery, London (2012); Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles (2011); The Garden Museum, London (2009); Exeter Phoenix (2008); Galerie Shuster, Berlin (2009); Galerie 1816, Bretenoux, France (2007); Galeria XX1, Warsaw (2005); and CCA, Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw (2000). She curated ‘Workshop of Hereafter’ Blyth Gallery, Imperial College, London (2009) and ‘The Miniature World Show’ Jerwood Space, London (2006).

Stewart Home (1962) is an artist and writer. His book The Assault On Culture (1988) included a chapter on Auto-Destructive Art and he also retooled Metzger's Art Strike in the mid-1980s, organising another to run from 1990-1993. When Gustav returned to London in the 1990s, he and Home became friends and in 2003 the latter's work was installed alongside Metzger's ‘100,000 Newspapers’ at T1/2 Gallery in London. Home's show ‘Vermeer II’ at workfortheeyetodo in London in 1996 was immediately preceded at the same venue by Metzger's solo exhibition ‘Damaged Nature’. Recent political interventions include banners emblazoned with the slogans 'Free Exorcism With Every Taylor Wimpey Ghost Home' (in English) and ‘Mansion On Shady Land’ (in Chinese), to mock the developer Taylor Wimpey, who were knocking down London socialhousing and replacing it with luxury apartments that they marketed as investments to the super rich in the Far East. This was part of a larger multi-artist project ‘Spectres of Modernism’ (London, 2017). Much of Home's recent activism has focused on defending working class housing in London from being replaced with properties that investors buy and leave empty. He was born in London in 1962 and still lives there.

Pontus Kyander (1959) is a curator and art writer who has known and worked with Gustav Metzger since 2001. He was the curator of Gustav Metzger's retrospective Act or Perish (2014-16; co-curated with Dobrila Denegri). In 2006 he curated Gustav Metzger Works at Lund Konsthall, and co-curated Gustav Metzger Prace (Work) 1995-2007 at Zacheta National Museum in Warsaw 2007. In 2008, he was a professor at Ewha Women's University in Seoul, South Korea. Pontus Kyander was the director of SKMU Sørlandets Kunstmuseum and Trondheim Kunstmuseum from 2010 to 2014. He currently lecturing at the Finnish Academy of Fine Art.

Emma Ridgway (1976) Head of Programme, Chief Curator, Modern Art Oxford (since 2015); Fellow, Clore Leadership Programme (2014–15); Curator, Creative Learning, Barbican Centre (2010–15); Curator, The Royal Society of Arts (2008–10); Curator / Curatorial Associate, Khoj International Artists’ Association, Delhi (2007–11); Public Programmes and Exhibition Organiser, Serpentine Gallery (2006–08); MA, Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art (2006); BA Joint Hons, Fine Art and Art History, Goldsmiths College, London (1998).

Eva Scharrer (1971) is an art historian, freelance curator and writer. She has organized exhibitions in Germany and abroad, most recently ‘Random Walks’ at Kunsthal 44 Møen, Møn, Denmark (2016), ‘Unfolding Constellations’ at CoCA Torun, Poland (2016), ‘Gustav Metzger – Mass Media Yesterday and Today’ at the showroom of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (2015), and ‘To Paint is to Love Again’ at Deutsche Bank KunstHalle in Berlin (2013). From 2009 to 2012 she was agent, curatorial researcher and writer for dOCUMENTA (13), and in 2007 she was co-curator of the 8th Sharjah Biennial, ‘Still Life. Art, Ecology and the Politics of Change’, where she realized phase one of Gustav Metzger’s unrealized project ‘Stockholm, June’ (1972/2007). She has written catalogue essays on renowned and emerging artists and has been contributor to international contemporary art journals such as Artforum, Frieze d/e, Spike Art, Modern Painters, Kunst-Bulletin, and Texte zur Kunst. She was editor of Block’s Weekend Zeitung, a newspaper accompanying the exhibitions ‘Ich kenne kein Weekend: Archive and Collection René Block’ at Berlinische Galerie and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein.

Sören Schmeling (1979) is an art critic, researcher, independent curator and author based in Freiburg/Breisgau (Germany) who is working on the link between archives, art and society. He is head of the photo archive of Kunsthalle Basel (Switzerland) were he recently curated the show ‘Exposed Exhibitions – Fotoarchiv der Kunsthalle Basel’, an intermix of visualizations of archival material and art historical research together with five contemporary artistic positions interpreting the photo archive’s vast content. He studied art history, modern German literature and economics at the Universities of Freiburg and Basel and was lecturer in art history at the Universities of Freiburg, Zurich and Lucerne. Currently he is finishing his PhD thesis on Gustav Metzger. From 2011 to 2013 he had run an independent research and exhibition project on Gustav Metzger based on his library in Freiburg and related archives. Thereby he realized together with Samuel Dangel the exhibitions: ‘passiv – explosive, revisited’ (2012) at Kulturwerk T66 and ‘Gustav Metzger. Years without Art.’ at the Morat Institut für Kunst und Kunstwissenschaft (2013) accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue. He is author of several catalogue essays on Gustav Metzger like Art History with a Gun, in: ‘We Must Become Idealists or Die. Gustav Metzger’, Fundación Jumex, Mexico City, 2016 or ‘a Model – a Museum for Today and for the Future’, in: ‘The Anti-Museum’, Koenig Books, London 2017.