Michael Landy

Famous for destroying everything he owned, this first major monograph of Michael Landy’s work surveys both his large-scale installations and lesser-known sculpture to illustrate the artist’s joyful inventiveness.

Richly illustrated in full colour, this book surveys his earliest work, including lesser-known sculptures – such as Sovereign shown at Freeze in 1988 – to large-scale installations Market, Closing Down Sale and Scrapheap Services. Other works discussed in detail include the infamous Break Down, where Landy destroyed all 7,227 of his possessions in a department store on Oxford Street, London; Semi-detached, where Landy constructed a full-scale model of his family home at Tate Britain, London; and the project H2NY where Landy made 168 drawings based on a Jean Tinguely sculpture.

With over 800 colour illustrations and four newly commissioned texts, this volume provides a comprehensive insight into Landy's work

Drawing upon Jean Tinguely’s Homage to New York (1960) performance, British artist Michael Landy’s re-enactment is explored in this volume. On March 17, 1960, Jean Tinguely staged his infamous sculpture-performance Homage to New York in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The piece destroyed itself in only 27 minutes, a source of lifetime fascination and inspiration for Landy. Best known for his Break Down project (2001) – during which he destroyed the totality of his possessions in an Oxford Street department store in London – Landy has paid homage to Tinguely’s piece. Accompanying reproductions of 40 of Landy’s studies on paper and David Ghar’s photography of Tinguely’s original performance, a text by Barry Schwabsky links both artists and projects.

Famous for destroying everything he owned, this first major monograph of Michael Landy’s work surveys both his large-scale installations and lesser-known sculpture to illustrate the artist’s joyful inventiveness.

Richly illustrated in full colour, this book surveys his earliest work, including lesser-known sculptures – such as Sovereign shown at Freeze in 1988 – to large-scale installations Market, Closing Down Sale and Scrapheap Services.

Other works discussed in detail include the infamous Break Down, where Landy destroyed all 7,227 of his possessions in a department store on Oxford Street, London; Semi-detached, where Landy constructed a full-scale model of his family home at Tate Britain, London; and the project H2NY where Landy made 168 drawings based on a Jean Tinguely sculpture.

With over 800 colour illustrations and four newly commissioned texts, this volume provides a comprehensive insight into Landy's work.