Michael Landy

Michael Landy: Michael Landy's Welcome to Essex, Firstsite, Essex

Firstsite will present a new body of work by Michael Landy that explores the recent history of his home county, Essex, and its contemporary portrayal in popular culture. The exhibition will unpack stereotypes of the county and question the influence of the media in conjunction with political agendas, in forming regional and national identities and often harmful stereotypes that deviate from on-the-ground reality.

For Welcome to Essex Landy has created an archive entitled Essexism which will occupy several of Firstsite’s gallery spaces. The archive highlights the stereotyping of the county’s population, into figures such as ‘Essex Man’ and ‘Essex Girl’ and comprises of clips from TV shows and films, plus books, magazine articles, music and newspaper articles from the last 30 years. Landy will also look to the history of Essex, such as the Plotlanders, who in the early 20^th-century went from London’s East End to self-build small houses on unwanted farm land in places such as Dunton, near Basildon. 

Connecting this history to experienced reality, Landy has been exploring Essex on foot, taking a series of walks around the county with notable cultural figures from Essex. Conversations undertaken and locations visited will be represented in the show in a new commission on Firstsite’s 140-metre curved internal wall.

Exhibition dates: 25 June - 5 September 2021

Further information

Michael Landy: Live Online Conversation with Artangel Co-Director James Lingwood

Wednesday, 10 February, 7pm GMT
Register here to watch the live conversation

Michael Landy will be joined by Artangel Co-Director James Lingwood to discuss his seminal project, Break Down, which opened to crowds in London on 10 February 2001. 

For Break Down, Landy created an inventory of his every possession, each to be destroyed at a specially constructed facility modelled on a material reclamation factory, installed at an empty department store on Oxford Street, London. Landy set about systematically deconstructing, pulping and granulating all 7,227 of his worldly possessions with the help of a team of operatives and a dedicated car mechanic. After two weeks, Landy was left with only the clothes he was wearing on the final day of Break Down. 

Two decades on, this talk celebrates the twentieth anniversary of Break Down whilst reconvening the artist with the project commissioner for an opportunity to reflect on the work's many themes and its legacy. 

Viewers are encouraged to post questions prior to and during the conversation via YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using #20YearsSinceBreakDown. A selection will be posed live by James Lingwood during the audience Q&A section.

To accompany the anniversary, Thomas Dane Gallery will present Michael Landy's Break Down: 20 Years, a display of archive materials on the lower level at No 3 Duke St, St James's when the gallery reopens. Dates will be announced in due course and further information will be posted on our website and social media.

Michael Landy and Caragh Thuring: Scarf Up Project

Michael Landy and Caragh Thuring are two of nine artists who have designed unique scarf patterns for CW+ — the official charity of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. The #ScarfUp project will be used by patients in hospitals suffering from asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and those recovering from COVID-19. Volunteer knitters are encouraged to make and donate these scarves to the hospital, so that patients can receive them when returning for follow-up appointments.

To read more about the project click here. 

Michael Landy: Firstsite Activity Pack

Firstsite’s artist created activity packs features contributions from UK artists including Michael Landy. ‘Art is where the home is’ will give you ideas about how to get creative at home. Anyone can have a go – there are no specialist materials required and it is free to download here: firstsite.uk/art-is-where-the-home-is/

Further information

Thomas Dane Gallery at Frieze LA 2020

Drawing(s)
Thomas Dane Gallery 
Stand: C08

Featuring works by: Terry Adkins, Hurvin Anderson, Walead Beshty, Lynda Benglis, Cecily Brown, Anya Gallaccio, Arturo Herrera, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Michael Landy, Bob Law, Glenn Ligon, Lari Pittman, Amy Sillman, Caragh Thuring and Akram Zaatari.

Preview: 13 February 2020
Public days: 14-16 February 2020

Further information 

Michael Landy: Annual Guest Lecture, The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

Friday 8 November 2019 

6:00-8:00pm

The Rose Bowl Lecture Theatre A

Portland Way 

Leeds 

Further information 

Michael Landy: Artist Talk, Chatsworth Arts Festival 

Landy will discuss the central role of drawing in his practice. As a draughtsman, Landy works in exceptional detail and often in large series, at times making preparatory drawings as a means to generate ideas. Landy’s meticulous renderings of detail have formulated series such as Nourishment (2002), a series of botanical drawings of weeds and H2NY - a tribute to Jean Tinguely’s failed self-destructing machine Homage to New York (1960). Drawing has been foundational to Landy’s large-scale series such as Breaking News (2015) and Michael Landy: Saints Alive at The National Gallery (2013), while more intimate series saw him produce 80 detailed portraits of his friends and family.⁣

Saturday 21 September 

2:30-3:30pm

Further information 

Michael Landy: In conversation with Nicholas Chambers, Art Gallery of New South Wales

To mark the opening of Making Art Public, Michael Landy appears in conversation with curator Nicholas Chambers, as they uncover the complex process of re-presenting 50 years of Kaldor Public Art Projects for this landmark exhibition.

Wednesday 11 September 

6:30pm

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Art Gallery Rd, The Domain 2000
Sydney, Australia

Further information 

Michael Landy: Making Art Public: 50 Years of Kaldor Public Art Projects, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Created by British artist Michael Landy, Making Art Public will survey the rich history of Kaldor Public Art Projects using artworks, archival materials and reconstructions of past projects, revisiting some of the most iconic large-scale artworks to have been presented in Australia.

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Art Gallery Rd,

The Domain 2000
Sydney

7 September 2019 - 16 February 2020

Further information 

Frieze LA - Stand: C8

Featuring works by: Terry Adkins, Hurvin Anderson, Lynda Benglis, Bruce Conner, Anya Gallaccio, John Gerrard, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Luisa Lambri, Michael Landy and Marisa Merz. 

Preview: 14 February 

Public days: 15-17 February 

Further information 

Artists for Artangel

Featuring Josè Damasceno, Michael Landy, Steve McQueen and Paul Pfeiffer

Live Auction

28 June, 2018

Banqueting House, Whitehall, London

Online Auction

7-28 June, 2018

www.paddle8.com/auction/artangel

Exhibition

8-27 June

22 Cork Street, London

Further information

Michael Landy: Open for Business

Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art

In the grounds of the former Faculty of Biology, University of Latvia

2 June - 28 October, 2018

Open: Wednesday - Sunday

Open for Business is commissioned by the Riga Biennial

Chief Curator: Katerina Gregos

Michael Landy's Open for Business (2018) at Riga's first International Biennial of Contemporary Art offers an antidote to the political predicament the United Kingdom finds itself in. As the country prepares to leave the European Union, potentially facing trade wars and international boycotts, Landy takes the politicians at their word to create an interactive artwork which reaffirms that we remain "open for business".

Appropriating one of the few remaining Soviet era press kiosks in Riga, Landy will turn it into a thriving shop, selling typical British goods and his own brand of Brexit themed merchandise.

Michael Landy will compère a game of Bingo at the kiosk on Sunday 3 June at 8pm.

Further information

Michael Landy: The Art of Wishes Benefit Auction

Bidding closes October 2, 11am

Michael Landy's 'Pylon Man' is inspired by the wish of seven year old Felix, to be a pylon-powered superhero called Electroman! This piece is featured in The Art of Wishes Benefit Auction and is open for bidding now until 2nd October on Artsy. All proceeds go to Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Further information

Michael Landy: DEMONSTRATION

29 Septemebr, 2017 - 13 May, 2018

The Power Plant, Toronto

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NEON presents Breaking News - Athens by Michael Landy

 An exhibition built with contributions from the public.

Diplarios School, Athens

Submission dates: 14 February - 26 May, 2017

Exhibition dates: 30 March - 11 June, 2017

Further information

Tinguely & Landy. Homage to New York - Performance - Destruction

EYE Film Museum

13 December, 2016 

The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the EYE filmmuseum present a tribute to the artist Jean Tinguely and his celebrated self-destructive machine.

Further information

Michael Landy: Out of Order

Museum Tinguely, Basel

8 June - 25 September, 2016

Museum Tinguely is presenting the first museum survey of acclaimed British artist Michael Landy. The exhibition will span Landy's entire career, bringing together monumental sculptures, works on paper and interactive art in one vast environment where works from three decades appear in dialogue.

Further information

Saints Alive

November 4, 2014 - March 8, 2015

Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City

Michael Landy: Saints Alive an exhibition originally conceived for The National Gallery, London, and presented in Mexico City by the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso and the British Council.

Saints Alive was the fulfilment of Landy's residency under the National Gallery's Associate Artist Programme, and the sculptures, collages and drawings he made were in response to The National Gallery's superb collection of old master paintings and drawings. 

The exhibition for Mexico has been enlarged since the first showing at The National Gallery in London in 2013, and it now comprises eight sculptures and 40 framed works on paper installed in seven inter-connecting galleries in the magnificent setting of Colegio de San Ildefonso. 

Further information

Yokohama Triennale

Yokohama Museum of Art and Shinko Pier Exhibition Hall, Japan

August 1- November 1, 2014

Further information

Art and Destruction is the first in-depth exploration of the theme of destruction in international contemporary visual culture. This ground-breaking exhibition includes works by a diverse range of international artists working in painting, sculpture, photography, film, installation, and performance. It reaches beyond art to enable a broader understanding of culture and society in the aftermath of World War II, under the looming fear of total annihilation in the atomic age, and up to the present. It explores the continuing use that artists have made of destruction as part of the creative process, sometimes sinister, sometimes playful, often iconoclastic, and always challenging.

Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm is the first exhibition exploring the history of physical attacks on art in Britain from the 16th century to the present day. Iconoclasm describes the deliberate destruction of icons, symbols or monuments for religious, political or aesthetic motives. The exhibition examines the movements and causes which have led to assaults on art through objects, paintings, sculpture and archival material.

Highlights include Thomas Johnson’s Interior of Canterbury Cathedral 1657– the only painting documenting Puritan iconoclasm in England – exhibited for the first time alongside stained glass removed from the windows of the cathedral. Allen Jones’s Chair 1969 is on display, as well as evidence of statues destroyed in Ireland during the 20th century. The show consides artists such as Gustav Metzger, Yoko Ono and Jake and Dinos Chapman, who have used destruction as a creative force.

Religious iconoclasm of the 16th and 17th centuries is explored with statues of Christ decapitated during the Dissolution, smashed stained glass from Rievaulx Abbey, fragments of the great rood screen at Winchester Cathedral and a book of hours from British Library, defaced by state-sanctioned religious reformers. These works are accompanied by vivid accounts of the destructive actions of Puritan iconoclasts.

Examples of attacks on symbols of authority during periods of political change include a portrait of Oliver Cromwell hung upside down by the staunch monarchist Prince Frederick Duleep Singh (1868–1926). It also shows fragments from statues of William III and Nelson’s Pillar destroyed by blasts during political struggles in Dublin in 1929 and 1966 respectively.

Suffragettes’ targeted attacks on cultural heritage are illustrated with works byEdward Burne-Jones’s Sibylla Delphica 1898, attacked in 1913 in Manchester, the birthplace of Emmeline Pankhurst, as well as John Singer Sargent’s Henry James 1913, slashed at the Royal Academy in 1914. These are accompanied by archival descriptions of the actions carried out and police surveillance photography of the militant Suffragette protagonists.

Assaults on art stimulated by moral or aesthetic outrage include those on Carl Andre’s Equivalent III 1966, and Allen Jones’s Chair 1969, damaged on International Women’s Day in the 1980s. The show reveals how for some modern artists destruction has been utilised as a creative force. The piano and chair destroyed by Ralph Ortiz during the 1966 Destruction in Art Symposiusm is on public display for the first time, alongside audio recordings of this action and works by Gustav Metzger, John Latham and Yoko Ono. Portraits from Jake and Dinos Chapman’s One Day You Will No Longer Be Loved series, Mark Wallinger’s Via Dolorosa 2002 and Douglas Gordon’s Self-portrait of you and me 2008 are also be included.

A series of large-scale kinetic sculptures bring a contemporary twist to the lives of the saints.

Saints are more often associated with traditional sacred art than with contemporary work, but Michael Landy, current Rootstein Hopkins Associate Artist in residence at the National Gallery, has been inspired to revisit the subject for this exhibition.

Landy's large-scale sculptures consist of fragments of National Gallery paintings cast in three dimensions and assembled with one of his artistic hallmarks - refuse. He has scoured car boot sales and flea markets accumulating old machinery, cogs and wheels to construct the works. Visitors can crank the works into life with a foot pedal mechanism.

Towering over you, the seven sculptures swivel and turn, in movements that evoke the drama of each saint's life. Saints Apollonia, Catherine, Francis, Jerome, Thomas - and an additional sculpture that takes a number of saints as its inspiration - fill the Sunley Room alongside paper collages.

The works by artists of the early Renaissance were particularly inspiring to Landy and you can see them, including Carlo Crivelli's Saint Jerome (about 1476), Lucas Cranach the Elder's Saints Genevieve and Apollonia (1506), Sassetta's The Stigmatisation of Saint Francis (1437-44) and Cosimo Tura's Saint Jerome (probably about 1470), displayed in the Gallery's Sainsbury Wing.

About the artist:

Born in London in 1963, Landy attended Goldsmiths College and is part of the generation of artists who became known as the YBAs (Young British Artists). He is best known for his 2001 installation, 'Break Down', where he catalogued and then destroyed all of his possessions in a former department store in London. 

In 1977 Michael Landy's father, John Landy, a miner, was seriously injured in a tunnel collapse at the age of 37. Severe spinal injuries rendered him housebound and unable to return to work. In his poignant video Four Walls, Landy explores his father's previous enthusiasm for working around the home, referencing his collection of tools, DIY manuals, home improvement magazines and videos, assembled over decades, both before and after the accident. Reflecting on the struggles of his father's life, the video displays photographs and line drawings of optimistic young couples and growing families pursuing the modern dream of the improved house, set alongside the recurring difficulties of blocked guttering, eroded surfaces, decayed structures, skinned knuckles and clogged drains. The images are overlaid with a soundtrack of his father whistling his favourite songs.

Four Walls originally formed part of Semi-detached, the installation of a monumental and meticulously rendered sculptural replica of the front and rear facades of his parents' Essex home in the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain in 2004.