British contemporary artist Michael Landy’s kinetic and interactive masterpiece, “Multi-Saint” (2013), is meeting art lovers at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Acquired in 2025 through the CAS (Contemporary Art Society) Collection Fund at Frieze—alongside Shaqúelle Whyte’s work In an embroiled fashion—to strengthen the museum’s contemporary art collection and take center stage in the gallery’s 150th anniversary celebrations, this work establishes a wonderful dialogue with the museum’s deep-rooted history. Hosting a rich collection of religious art dating back to the 15th century, the Walker Art Gallery prioritizes contemporary works in its recent acquisitions that directly interact with the memory of this historical collection and reckon with the past.
A Modern Deconstruction of Sacred Icons
Landy’s moving sculpture, which actively involves the viewer in the process, presents Saint Catherine, Saint Lucy, Saint Peter Martyr, Saint Lawrence, and Saint Michael in an extraordinary collage along with the traditional symbols that define them.
This kinetic installation—the fruit of the artist’s residency at the National Gallery between 2010 and 2012, followed by his highly acclaimed 2013 exhibition “Saints Alive”—draws its strength from the Christian iconographies of Renaissance masters like Carlo Crivelli, Ambrogio Bergognone, and Hans Memling, whose works are also held in the Walker Art Gallery collection. Deconstructing classical religious depictions with a modern language, this assemblage also pays a powerful tribute to the foot-pedal-operated mechanical sculptures of Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, whom Landy first encountered and admired as a student at Tate Britain in 1982.
Merging Faith and the Machine Age
Combining images from art history considered sacred and untouchable with industrial metals, cogs, and motion, this provocative work melts faith and the mechanized modern world in the same crucible. Exhibited within the historical atmosphere of the Walker Art Gallery on William Brown Street, this kinetic experience turns the invisible bridge between the past and the present into an artistic playground, inviting the audience to explore.
