01/10/14
Interview with Michael Landy
Michael Landy (born 1963, London) studied at Goldsmiths and
is one of the so-called YBA (Young British Artists) generation, who took part
in the first great artist-led warehouse exhibition, Freeze, alongside Damien
Hirst, in 1988. He really made his name, however, in February 2001, when he
systematically catalogued and destroyed all 7,227 of his personal belongings
during a two-week long “performance” in a disused department store on Oxford
Street, called Break Down. More
recently, Acts of Kindness on the
London Underground documented, as its titles suggests, kindly interactions
between commuters and users of the transport system. Nowadays, Landy is, as he
puts it, albeit very tongue in cheek, “all grown up”, having been elected not
only as a Royal Academician, but also made Professor of Drawing at the Academy
Schools. “Actually,” he laughs, “I’m just trying to find a way I can get thrown
out of there, really. That’s what I’m thinking about at the moment.”
In October 2013, Landy moved in to a new studio on Calvin
Street, in trendy Shoreditch. Just around the corner from Spitalfields fruit
and vegetable market, the building is one of a whole line that used to be used
as warehouse storage space. “You could actually walk between all of the
buildings,” Landy explains, “but, at some point, someone decided to turn them
into homes.” When he and his partner, fellow artist Gillian Wearing, bought the
space at number 27, they had it gutted and built on a new top floor in which
they now live. Landy describes it as a “live-work space”, although the studio remains
very much just that, and is separate from their private quarters.
