10 Questions for Artist Michael Landy

THE ARTSDESK.COM
By Fisun Güner

Michael Landy wearing a mask of Saint Peter, one of Christ's 12 Apostles

UNITED KINGDOM---Much of Michael Landy’s work concerns destruction or decay. The British artist, who recently turned 50 and is part of the YBA generation, came to prominence in 2001 with the Artangel commission Break Down, which saw all his worldly possessions destroyed in an industrial shredder. His National Gallery exhibition Saints Alive opens this week, the culmination of a two-year residency in which he responds to the gallery's collection of paintings of saints, from Lucas Cranach the Elder's Saint Apollonia to Botticelli's Saint Francis of Assisi. [link]

1. You’d never visited the National Gallery collection before getting your residency. What’s it like coming to the collection completely fresh, after practising as an artist for so long?
2. Why where you drawn to the saints?
3. You were brought up Catholic. Are you religious?
4. Were you thinking of Hieronymus Bosch when you started to think of your sculptures?
5. Jean Tinguely obviously made a profound impression on you when you were still a teenager. Is he why you wanted to become an artist?
6. Do you still draw every day?
7. Do you think drawing has helped you as an artist?
8. Do you ever feel, like Saint Francis, that you’d like to divest yourself of all your material possessions?
9. Do you think about death a lot?
10. Finally, are you getting nervous about what kind of reception you'll receive for this exhibition of self-destructing saints?