Olaf Metzel, influenced by the anarchist movement and the counterculture of squatting, has been a sociologically rigorous observer, a producer of large-scale sculptures, and a daring "agent provocateur" in contemporary German art since the early 1980s. Whether critical, sardonic, or provocative, Metzel continuously explores the idea of time, with its manifestations and events. He reassesses the significance of the motifs he has chosen by juxtaposing art, politics, everyday life, media, and popular culture on an equal footing. The artist not only offers new perspectives and cross-references, but also heightens awareness of current socio-political issues, which he radically and uncompromisingly implements.
His oeuvre is driven by a rebellious, reactive, combative, and incendiary impulse. Grounded in the eulogy of the beauty of loss, Metzel is invoking images of debris, waste, and scrap. When we recapitulate the many shows Metzel mounted in abandoned spaces, galleries, museums and streets and public squares since the early 1980s, we have the impression of looking at what Wieland Schmied in 1995 called "relics of a battle". In fact, viewed superficially, the artist might seem to have run amok, concerned only to demask, deform and demolish. Yet his process of stacking and amassing not only reflected a reverence for Dada, Surrealism and Decollage, and hardly bore parallels ith Fluxus and Nouveau Réalisme. Read More
Almost all of Metzel's works play on the contrast between destruction and construcion, and ultimately on that between reality and art. Historical, social and political issues underpin all of them, even though this impulse is usually not immediately recognizable, becoming apparent only after long observation and reflection.
Olaf Metzel (born in 1952 in Berlin, lives and works in Munich) was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich for almost three decades, where he also served as director from 1995 to 1999. Metzel has curated exhibitions, written articles for magazines and newspapers, and produced multiple publications. He has had numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad, and the work of this multi-award winning artist can be found in important international museums and collections such as Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf; Hamburger Kunsthalle; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Neues Museum, Nuremberg; Kunsthalle Bremen; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett/Museum of Prints and Drawings); Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt; Munich Re Art Collection, Munich; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Falckenberg Collection, Hamburg; Collezione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; die Mobiliar, Bern; Vehbi Koc Foundation, Istanbul; The Margulies Collection, Miami; etc.
