Michael Landy Overview

Michael Landy is an English artist, one of the so-called Young British Artists (YBAs). He is best known for the performance piece-cum-installation, Break Down, in which he destroyed all of his possessions. Break Down, the work which put him in the... [more]

Michael Landy is an English artist, one of the so-called Young British Artists (YBAs). He is best known for the performance piece-cum-installation, Break Down, in which he destroyed all of his possessions. Break Down, the work which put him in the public eye, was held in February 2001 at an old branch of the clothes store C&A on Oxford Street in London. Landy gathered together all his possessions, ranging from postage stamps to his car, and including all his clothes and works of art by himself and others, painstakingly catalogued all 7,227 of them in detail, and then destroyed all in public. The process of destruction was done on something resembling an assembly line in a mass production factory, with ten workers reducing each item to its basic materials and then shredding them. Break Down, which was a joint commission from The Times newspaper and Artangel, attracted around 45,000 visitors. At the end of the process all that was left was bags of rubbish, none of which were sold or exhibited in any form. Landy made no money as a direct result of Break Down, and following it had no possessions at all. [show less]