Anton Kaun | Carl F. Oesterhelt - Strunz! Enterprises

We wrote letters but received no replies. One of us pushed a note under
the door of his flat in London. Then we were able to speak to him. But
the tape recorder had to stay off.
He was born in Nuremberg. His parents, orthodox Jews, and nearly all
his other relatives were murdered by the Nazis during the Second World
War. When the Refugee Children Movement saved him in 1939 and
brought him to England, he was twelve. Twenty years later he gave his
first solo exhibition entitled Three Paintings by G. Metzger in a London
café.
Half a century ago he published his first manifesto, in which he defined
his notion of Auto-Destructive Art:
Auto-destructive art is primarily a form of public art for industrial societies.
At his South Bank Demonstration in London in 1961 he presented Auto-
Destructive Art for the first time in a public space with acid action painting.
A few years later he developed Auto-Creative Art. He was a founder
member of the Committee of 100, which was dedicated to opposing
nuclear war and weapons of mass destruction, he took part in demonstrations
and was sent to prison in Staffordshire for a one month sentence.
He performed his Liquid Crystal Projections in the 1960s at concerts
of the bands The Cream and The Move in London. His lectures
inspired Pete Townshend to smash his guitar on stage. In 1966 he initiated
and organised the Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS) in London, in