ABSTRACT
Walking down Oxford Street, London, in early February 2001, it would have looked like business as usual at number 499: the lights were on, activity was visible inside, and people were coming in and out. But the ubiquitous plate glass windows did not present the passerby with the material moments of an ideal life found in other Oxford Street windows. Instead, framed by Europe’s busiest high street, was a conveyor belt on which the artist Michael Landy was destroying all 7,227 of his possessions as part of his artwork Break Down.1
