Collection: Michael Landy

Michael Landy (born 1963, London) is a British artist whose practice is rooted in a sustained, often forensic engagement with consumer culture, accumulation and the value systems that organise everyday life. A graduate of Goldsmiths College, London, he was a central figure in the YBA generation of the late 1980s and 1990s, participating in early group exhibitions including Instructions at Gio’ Marconi, Milan, in 1992, and Freeze (1988). He is best known for Break Down (2001), in which he systematically destroyed all 7,227 of his personal possessions in a former C&A department store on Oxford Street, London, over two weeks. Earlier works including Market (1990) and Scrapheap Services (1995) established his reputation for large-scale, durational projects that operate at the intersection of institutional critique and social observation. He has exhibited widely in Europe and internationally, with major presentations at Tate Modern and the Serpentine Gallery, and was elected a Royal Academician in 2008.