During one of our lectures we were shown a short video about the artist Michael Landy’s exhibit – Breakdown. This really interested me and led onto a number of discussions with friends and family members about the idea of art and what can actually be defined as such.
I feel that this exhibit fits well into all three categories that we are looking at during this module. The idea of power, memory and spectacle. Obviously this piece of art is a spectacle somebody who is destroying everything they own in a public place, coming out with more debt than they went in with is clearly a spectacle and has gained a lot of media attention, including articles on the bbc news website. I think this gained such attention as it has never been done before, however I think that if someone did attempt to re-create this it wouldnt work as well as it has this time.
In terms of power and memory, these are both quite personal factors to Landy, I have discussed in previous blogs about the reasoning behind taking lots of photographs and keeping things that have no real meaning just a memory. We are scared of forgetting things. However here is someone who has destroyed everything of sentimental value, everything that has held a memory for him. This to me shows an inner power which is held within the artist. As we see in the video he decides when certain parts of his life were “destroyed” and he left some things on the conveyerbelt much longer than other items showing their personal meaning.
The ability to create a piece of art for the world to look in on which could be so potentially detrimental to himself, I feel showed the character and enthusiasm of Landy for his artwork. I think this could be what drew me to the work itself in the first place.
