Michael Landy

Michael Landy has used monumental performance-installations to explore social and political issues, such as the nature of marketing and consumerism; the commodification of art and the value placed on human beings in the corporate world.

After studying at Loughborough College of Art 1981-83 and then at Goldsmiths College, London 1985-88, Landy took part in the seminal exhibitions Freeze 1988, East Country Yard Show 1990, and Sensation 1999, and in so doing became known as part of the ‘Young British Artists’ (YBAs) movement.

Landy has been involved in numerous projects demonstrating his fascination with the constructive potential of destruction, including most famously Break Down, 2001 in which the artist systematically destroyed every single thing he owned at that point in his life (over 7000 individual items) and, more recently, in his 2018 exhibition Scaled Down, in which his earlier works were compressed into small cubic sculptures. In contrast to his often-violent sculptural work, Landy’s draughtsmanship is meticulous and intimate.

In 2013 Landy was Artist-in-residence at The National Gallery, London, and in 2014 he was appointed Eranda Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy Schools.

Michael Landy is represented by Thomas Dane Gallery and lives and works in London, England.