OLAF METZEL | ONE+ONE+ONE
OPENING HOURS DURING ZURICH ART WEEKEND | FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, SEPT 17-18, 11AM-8PM, SUNDAY, SEPT 19, 11AM-6PM
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
In a radio broadcast by France Culture, prominent directors talked about films that had influenced them. Towards the end of each episode there was the “minute Godard”. Here, Jean-Luc Godard made bizarre comments about his colleagues. Of his own films, he could at best only tolerate the last four. Whether “ONE+ONE” is one of them remains unknown.
Shot in 1968, the film also ran under the title “Sympathy for the Devil”. The avant-garde film shows the recording sessions of the Rolling Stones’ song of the same title in a parallel montage with intercuts of social conflicts of the 1960s. From today’s perspective, the creation of this classic of rock history, and thus the music of the Stones, remains more in the memory than Godard’s attempt to combine it with staged contemporary history. Olaf Metzel highlights this conflict with the motif of the film poster as a pop cultural theme.
In the juxtaposition of everyday moments, literature, music, film or newspaper clippings, the artist poses the question of the classification and significance of different motifs through selection and exaggeration. Collages from fashion or lifestyle magazines, the serial grid of stock exchange quotations, book pages by Simone de Beauvoir, or the film poster of Jean-Luc Godard, they are always “three-dimensional” images of and with their time. Always shaped, folded, crumpled, these sculptural objects consist of aluminum plates digitally printed on both sides. Whether as a visual diary or medial image memory, the process of selecting and adding gives the exhibition its title, “ONE+ONE” becomes “ONE+ONE+ONE”.
We are delighted to show new works by Olaf Metzel in Switzerland.
Opening Hours: Tuesday – Friday | 11am – 6pm, Saturday | 12 – 5pm, and by appointment
For more information please contact us:
Marie Christine Livie +41 78 647 2122 | mariechristine@liviefineart.com
Caspar Livie +41 78 631 89 26 | caspar@liviefineart.com
Installation views by Esther Mathis
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Olaf Metzel (born 1952 in Berlin) lives and works in Munich. From 1990 – 2019 he was professor of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, which he headed as rector from 1995-1999. In addition to numerous solo exhibitions in Germany and abroad, he participated in documenta 8 in Kassel in 1987, the Skulptur-Projekte Münster in 1987 and 1997, as well as the Sydney Biennale (1984, 1990), the Istanbul Biennale (1991, 1995 and 2017) and the Sao Paulo Biennale (2002). Olaf Metzel has also received numerous prizes and awards, such as the Arnold Bode Prize (Kassel, 1994), the Wilhelm Loth Prize (Darmstadt, 1997), the Lichtwark Prize (Hamburg, 2010), and the Jerg Ratgeb Prize (Reutlingen, 2018). Olaf Metzel’s sculptures in public spaces can be found in Germany, for example the recently inaugurated monumental work “Noch Fragen?” at the Berliner Staatsbibliothek Unter den Linden, in other European countries and Asia. He curates exhibitions and publishes articles in magazines and newspapers.
Works by Olaf Metzel can be found in international museums and collections, including Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf; Hamburger Kunsthalle; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Neues Museum, Nuremberg; Kunsthalle Bremen; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett); Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt; Munich Re Art Collection, Munich; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Falckenberg Collection, Hamburg; René Block Collection, Berlin; Böckmann Collection, Berlin; Hollweg Collection, Bremen; Collezione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (Italy); die Mobiliar, Bern (Switzerland); Vehbi Koc Foundation, Istanbul (Turkey); The Margulies Collection, Miami (FL/USA); among others.