Michael Landy's 2001 Break Down performance revisited in New York exhibition with inventory wallpaper

Michael Landy's 2001 performance Break Down, commissioned by The Times and Artangel, systematically destroyed all 7,227 of his possessions at London's old C&A Building on Oxford Street from February 10 to 24, 2001. The recent exhibition Breaking News at Sperone Westwater in New York, which closed December 20, 2017, featured video highlights of that performance and displayed pages from the Break Down Inventory. Landy's team, dressed in blue overalls, used conveyor belts and industrial machines to meticulously break down items ranging from his car to postage stamps. The current installation at 257 Bowery on Manhattan's Lower East Side, open through March 10, 2018, wallpapers the third floor with inventory pages. Landy, a 37-year-old British artist, focused his work on consumerism and waste, approaching destruction with bureaucratic precision rather than nihilism. The performance raised questions about ownership and control, with observers expressing desires to rescue items or interfere with the process. Media attention highlighted the destruction of sentimental objects like his father's sheepskin jacket and artworks from other artists, including a Chris Ofili print. The project's personal impact lingered, with observers noting how Landy's systematic elimination made them reconsider their own relationships to possessions.