Another artist to have a discussion with the importance of possession, perhaps in its most literal sense is English artist Landy. His performance/ installation piece entitled ‘Break down’ (2001) saw Landy go through the painstaking process of creating a documented itinerary of his entire life possessions from paperclips to his car. Then go about the process of deconstructing everything he owned until it was in manageable sizes for feeding through an automated destruction line including crusher and shredder. The process was set up in the empty space of a ground floor department building on oxford st, from the street and through the glass passers by could see the complete demise or break down of the artists possessions and consumer life. In front of an audience he put everything he owned on to a conveyor belt and filled a glass space with the shredded remains. In doing so he was making a point about the crisis of ownership and consumption, stating that it was all totally unnecessary to existence. I think by this point he was very unhappy with the all consuming nature of the world coming out of Thatcher’s late 80’s and into the new Labor 90’s. It's an incredibly brutal way to make a point but i guess the most effective way to execute a concept like this. It's like if he was thinking of doing something less extreme with his possessions there would be a feeling that it could be taken a bit further, that the idea could be pushed more to a level that put across the poignancy of the concept. And that bit further would be this piece.
