yba

In 2001, YBA Michael Landy, took over a closed-down department store in London’s shopping district where he took everything he owned and fed it into an industrial shredding machine that he had constructed. His stereo, his clothes, his artworks, even his prized sheepskin coat that had belonged to his father – all of it got shoved into the shredder, helped along by Landy’s team of bliue-coveralled assistants. The show, called Break Down, is of my favourite works of installation/performance art of all time, exploring in a powerful way some well-trod themes of consumption, waste, nostalgia, and identity. (It was later ripped off, in a much crasser way, by Neil Boorman for his “Bonfire of the Brands” job application).