From an Atmospheric Point of View

Abstract

This article investigates, from an atmospheric point of view, the constellation of a selection of works from the post-war period and their recent reiterations by artist and political activist Gustav Metzger (1926--2017) to render visible the conceptual underpinnings that inform their philosophical coherence, so as to illuminate their capacity to resonate with the alarming features of our own contemporary air condition. The Second World War, in which the war was in the air on a global scale, was the deadliest moment in human history. Given the prominent role and dialectical conceptualization that the air (and subsequently the act of breathing) plays in the history of modern civilization as both common air and common threat, it is in the context of the atmospheric constellations of the air war that we will consider Metzger's counter-modernity project. After-images of the air war figure prominently in his uncompromising interventional and radical actions for anti-capitalist, anti-war and environmental causes to perform an aesthetic and social critique on our damaged life, damaged nature and denatured culture. Like the early German Romantics, Metzger sought to restore our relationship with nature by generating alternative ways through which harmony between people and their breathing space might be established. Featuring the author's interviews with Metzger published for the first time, this article provides a critical interpretation of Mica and Air Cube, Dancing Tubes, Mobbile, Earth minus Environment and Project Stockholm, June (Phase 1) to argue that the contemporary relevance of Metzger's works in the context of the current environmental crisis is quite telling and now feels more imperative than ever.