The Italian Futurist Soffici once proclaimed 'Art's final masterpiece will be its own destruction'; that final masterpiece was the auto-destructive art of Gustav Metzger.

On 3 July 1961 Gustav Metzger gave a public demonstration of Auto-destructive Art on the South Bank in London where he sprayed and painted acid onto three red, black and white nylon 'canvases'; the disintegration of each nylon 'canvas' was the act of creation of Auto-destructive Art. In true dadaist style, Metzger issued a series of manifestos to accompany the demonstration where he explains Auto-destructive Art as 'an attack on capitalist values and the drive towards annihilation'.

Metzger's experiences of Nazi Germany and his subsequent commitment to pacifism led him to become an active member of CND and founder member of the Committee of 100. Metzger's political commitment led inevitably into conflict with the authorities. In advance of a demonstration in 1961, Metzger (along with Bertrand Russell and thirtyfive of the Committee of 100) spent one month in prison for refusing to be bound over to keep the peace. Metzger's commitment and deep-rooted sense of the destructivity at the heart of the human condition echoes Nietzsche's conclusion in the nineteenth century:

'The cult of war is too deep rooted in the consciousness of Europeans to be uprooted by the hands of laughter and even when it will become a bloody farce threatening the existence of humanity itself, men will rush to their beer-gardens, drinking the bitter brew of death and destruction'.
Nietzsche, My Sister and I

Nietzsche's statement seems to be a prophecy of the Cold War policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (abbreviated appropriately enough to MAD). Metzger, like countless others, considered the stockpiling of nuclear weapons to overkill scale as a 'bloody farce threatening the existence of humanity itself'. This revulsion and disgust at the violence in society, was reflected in the work of disaffected post-war artists, which, in 1966, led Metzger to organize the Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS).
DIAS was held in London and consisted of a month long series of events with a three day symposium at the Africa Centre. DIAS was attended by many key figures from the international avant-garde including Herman Nitsch and other 'Viennese Actionists',Volf Vostell, Al Hansen, Ralph Ortiz and Yoko Ono.
Ono's performance 'Cut' involved the audience cutting off pieces of her clothing until she was practically naked. The event which caused the most scandal, however, was the performance of Herman Nitsch's '5th Abreaktionsspiel of OM Theatre' for which Metzger was fined £100. This performance included images of male genitalia projected onto a mutilated lamb carcass.

Gustav Metzger is an extremist, or rather his methods are extreme. Having witnessed mankind's capacity for destruction and destruction of the environment in particular (which Metzger refers to as 'damaged nature'), he cannot simply ignore it, he fights fire with fire and sees it as his duty to contemplate extremes.
In 'Earth to Galaxies: on destruction and destructivity' Metzger examines the destructivity inherent in the forces of nature itself: 'Can it be said that the sun is destructive?'. The sun is both preserver and destroyer; technology has allowed us to harness solar energy while we remain powerless to prevent its destructive effect on nature and ultimately its own self-destruction. However, in a manner that echoes both Hindu creation myth and Bakunin's anarchism (from the beginning Metzger has aligned Auto-destructive Art with auto-creative art), Metzger views destructivity as integral to any act of creativity:
'Art arises from the feeling and the knowledge that the line between a generative and a destructive reality is paper thin'.

The contemplation of the galaxies and of the Hebrew concept of 'Ruach' ('Breath of God') leads Metzger, not to the escapism of a rarefied spiritualism, but to an extended concept of materialism and the conditions of human existence:nature in extremis. As ever, the lesson for humanity is one of humility.