Michael Landy: Theater of Junk

Galerie Nathalie Obadia is pleased to present, for the first time in France, the work of the English artist Michael Landy with his work entitled "H.2.N.Y". This work is entirely based on the performance of the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) "Homage to New York", during which the machine built in the gardens of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), by the artist, was to self-destruct in 27 minutes (1960).

Fascinated by Jean Tinguely's work since the discovery of his retrospective at the Tate Gallery in London in 1982, Michael Landy spent two years documenting and making sketches (charcoal, oil, glue, ink) based on research carried out at the Tinguely Museum in Basel and the MOMA in New York.
Through intensive work, Michael Landy will try to recapture the essence of the event, to disarticulate it, to bring it to life. What he has done with "H.2.N.Y" is a kind of homage to Jean Tinguely's "Homage to New York".
What is essential in Michael Landy's work and artistic projects is that when he decides to put an idea into action, he follows through, stubborn, provocative and playful.

A graduate of Goldsmith College in London, Michael Landy belongs to the generation of YBA (Young British Artists) such as Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Sarah Lucas, Fiona Rae. Michael Landy stood out in 2001 with his monumental installation "Break Out". It takes its starting point in the idea of listing all his possessions, cataloguing them and then categorizing them until everything has been identified. A team of workers will then proceed to methodically dismantle each item.
Michael Landy is a very original artist who is among those who constantly question the essence and the future of the work of art. In this sense, Michael Landy is in the logical lineage of Marcel Duchamp whose "ready-made" raised the question of the work of art at the dawn of the Fordist era*, he raises it again from the new productive modalities that characterize contemporary capitalism*.

The series "H.2.N.Y" consists of black and white drawings reconstituting the event "Homage to New York" (black as the black smoke created by the explosion of the machine...) and three videos are presented in loop on the screen of an old Sony Trinitron television: one is a documentary by the artist, the two others are respectively by D.A Pennebaker and Robert Breer.

Like Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and Michael Landy (1963), Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) is one of those artists who provoke and criticize through "play". By making himself, from recycled material, creaking, jolting machines destined for destruction, he refuses the systematic production of the manufactured object.