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Lot 108
Michael Landy (B. 1953)
H.2.N.Y. Tinguely Machine Erases its own Construction in 27 Minutes
Closed12 February 2015
Price Realised
GBP 18,750
More Information
Specialist note
‘The object of Landy’s obsession was and is Jean Tinguely’s machine Homage to New York, which destroyed itself in 27 minutes before an invited audience in the Museum of Modern Art garden in Manhattan on 17 March 1960. Anaïs Nin watched the machine’s demise: “the entire structure went into a spasm which opened the boxes of chemicals, and they exploded into coloured smoke which filled the balloon with air, set the roll of pare unrolling and the brush paintings erratically … The piano started to burn slowly, and as it burned the notes played wistfully, out of tune, unreal, like a pianola’’’
(J. Cooper, Growing Up: The Young British Artists at 50, London 2012, pp. 108-109).
(J. Cooper, Growing Up: The Young British Artists at 50, London 2012, pp. 108-109).