Benutzer:Tomukas/Baustelle/Michael Landy
Michael Landy (* 1963 in London ) ist ein englischer Künstler und gehört zu den Young British Artists (YBA). Er erhielt Bekanntheit durch seine Performance Break Down im Jahr 2001, bei der er zunächst all seine Besitztümer katalogisierte, um anschließend alle 7006 Gegenstände zu zerstören.
Landy studierte zunächst in Loughton und Loughborough. Später studierte er am Goldsmiths College in London, als er sich dazu entschied sich intensiver mit Kunst zu befassen, nachdem eines seiner Bilder im BBC Kunstprogramm Take Hart[1] gezeigt wurde. Werden den Studium am Goldsmiths stellte er auf der Freeze aus, die von Damien Hirst und Carl Freedman organisiert wurde. Hier fanden sich die meisten Mitglieder der Young British Artists zusammen. Landys erstes großes Eigenwerk war Market (1990), eine Installation konstruiert aus verschiedenen Markständen. Ähnlich zu seinen späteren Arbeiten verbarg sich hinter der Arbeit eine Kritik an Konsum und Gesellschaft.
Im Jahr 1992 startete Landy eine Zusammenarbeit mit Karten Schubert zur Gestaltung von Closing Down Sale für seine Gallerie: Closing Down Sale bestand aus einer Vielzahl von Einkaufswagen, die mit "BARGAIN" (dt. Ausverkauf) beschriftet waren. Gleichzeitig wurden Durchsagen abgespielt, die den Kunden zum Kauf anregen sollten. Das Werk wurde als ein Kommentar zur Kommodifikation der Kunst verstanden und kann als Vorläufer für Break Down verstanden werden - eine Arbeit, die keine absatzfähigen Objekte produzierte.
Scrapheap Services (1995-1996) war vor Break Down Landys bekanntestes Werk. Hierbei hat eine fiktionale
Before Break Down, Landy's best known work was Scrapheap Services (1995-1996), which featured a fictitious cleaning company which sought to change society by way of "a minority of people being discarded". Promotional videos were made for the company and a large number of cut-out men were made from old magazines to be swept up and destroyed. This installation typifies the YBAs' interests in transforming the mundane into art, and recontextualisaion. Its visual impact on one level is a typical industrial event, yet the gallery environment and bright red figures, along with the sinister irony of the title, is intended to force the viewer to address issues of humanity and consumerism.
In 1997, work which Landy had previously sold to Charles Saatchi was included in the notorious Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. This successful show later toured Berlin and New York, but Landy's work was somewhat overshadowed by some of the other more outrageous artworks.
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 (C&A had recently ceased trading, and the shop had been emptied). 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.
Landy made little art in the year following Break Down before returning with a solo show in late 2002, entitled Nourishment. The exhibition consisted of a series of detailed etchings of weeds, rendered in the traditional style of botanical draughtsmanship. The intricate detailing is reported to have resulted in lasting eye damage for Landy.
In 2003, Landy was selected to chair the judging panel for the Beck's Futures art prize.
Landy's latest project Art Bin is a new installation for the South London Gallery described by the artist as 'a monument to creative failure'. Artists and collectors are invited to apply to dispose of works of art via a dedicated website Art Bin.
Landy's partner is fellow British artist Gillian Wearing [1].
Einzelnachweise[Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten]
- ↑ Art & Design Zone: Michael Landy - interview from ideasfactory.com
External links[Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten]
- Artist Project - Hello Weed — Tate Magazine, Issue 3 (brief overview of Landy's work and commentary on Nourishment).
- Paper on Scrapheap Services
- BBC Four Documentary on Break Down
- Man in Oxford Street is Auto-destructive
- Break Down section on Artangel website