Decades of destruction: Gustav Metzger at London's Serpentine Gallery

To Crawl Into – Anschluss, Vienna, March 1938 (1996). Much of Gustav Metzger's art is informed by his experiences of Nazi Germany and his escape to Britain as a young Jewish refugee. In this artwork, visitors are encouraged to crawl under the cloth, where they are confronted with a picture of Jewish people being forced to scrub the streets of Vienna in 1938 Photograph: Geoff Caddick/AFP/Getty Images

Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, April 28 1943, (1995/2009). In the photograph, a Jewish child is holding up his hands – 'I identify with this child,' says Metzger Photograph: Linda Nylind/Linda Nylind

Metzger wears a gas mask while spraying three nylon curtains with hydrochloric acid, causing them to disintegrate, on London's South Bank, 3 July 1961 Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

Liquid Crystal Environment (2005–2009). Anything but conventional, Metzger rejected his training as a painter and chose to demolish art instead, reconfiguring the act itself as an artwork Photograph: Linda Nylind/Linda Nylind

A visitor standing in front of Liquid Crystal Environment Photograph: Linda Nylind/Linday Nylind

Mirror Trees (2009). Metzger's upturned trees, roots waving in the air, aim to reflect on the impact of environmental issues Photograph: Linda Nylind/Linda Nylind

A closeup of the upended tree roots, installed in Manchester earlier this year as part of the city's international festival Photograph: Linda Nylind/Linda Nylind

Mass Media Today and Today (2009). Metzger is exhibiting his own archive of newspapers, witness to a lifetime's frustration at the daily news Photograph: Linda Nylind/Linda Nylind

Detail from Been There, Done That KS2 (2001/2009). As a long-standing Marxist, Metzger is an active opponent of capitalism; many of his installations offer up a critique of the waste inherent in consumerism Photograph: Linda Nylind/Linda Nylind

Kill the Cars, Camden Town, London (1996). For Metzger, destruction is a form of last-chance creativity in a terminal world. In this installation, he instructed his technicians to pound the vehicle with sledgehammers until it resembled the car in the photograph, being attacked by kids. He says: 'They were shouting "Kill the car! Kill the car!" until they were exhausted' Photograph: Linda Nylind/Linda Nylind