Historic Photographs: ‘Til we have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land 1998

Here, Gustav Metzger presents a photographic image encased within a crude wooden structure. This juxtaposition immediately establishes a stark contrast between the slick, captured reality of the photograph and the rough, almost brutal materiality of its frame. The image itself, a traffic jam viewed from above, is densely packed, its lines of cars forming a claustrophobic grid. This is visually held, almost imprisoned, by the heavy, untreated wooden planks surrounding it. The frame overwhelms and dominates, acting as both a border and a barrier. The composition sets up a tension between the photographic image which represents the modern world and the primitivism of its raw material. This piece suggests questions about containment and the relationship between nature and industrial progress. The materiality of the wooden frame, its rough texture and unrefined construction, serves as a commentary on the unsustainable consumption and potential damage that society inflicts upon nature. Metzger challenges us to consider how we frame our understanding of progress, and at what cost.