Michael Landy's Saints Alive at the National Gallery

Michael Landy is a contemporary artist best known for cataloguing and then destroying all his possessions, so he was definitely a surprise choice as artist in residence at the National Gallery. But surprise was what they were looking for, and they certainly got it in Landy's current show, Saints Alive. National Gallery artists in residence are expected to produce work inspired by works in the Gallery, and Landy's starting point was noting the large number of wheels displayed as a result of all the depictions of the martyrdom of St Catherine. This prompted him to examine all the other, frequently fantastical, depictions of saintly martyrdom and self-punishment on show.

The result is a series of animatronic figures which show contain both parts of bodies, realistically modelled and coloured, and the mechanical parts which make the figures move when visitors take some action; for example, St Francis hits himself in the head with a cross when a donation is put in the box, St Apollonia draws out her teeth with pliers, and St Jerome hits himself in the chest with a rock. When I was there, a young tourist was having fun with a large wooden Catherine wheel on the wall, which could be spun so tell fortunes - such as "You will never marry because you will find no man your equal". Although the show is mocking medieval superstition in the knowledge that few take all this seriously these days, it is done in a teasing rather than a spiteful spirit. The most mischievous is the"Multi-saint", which manages to refer to five martys in one model.

An accompanying video showed how the models were made by a specialist company to Landy's drawings, so he did not make the pieces personally (not unusual in sculpture, of course). What he contributes is his ideas and I don't think many people would have ideas like this, so we get to experience something we wouldn't have otherwise. But the absence of demonstrated physical skills will make some say this isn't "art", and certainly the gap beteen art and entertainment is narrower than is usual in places like the National Gallery.

But you have to admire Landy's self-confident gusto in producing something like this in this setting. The video shows him being slightly worried about being in such close proximity with all the big names in this august setting, and admitting there was no point in trying to compete. Interestingly, he had never been to the National Gallery before his residency, whether as a child, a student, or a practicing artist, so presumably he had little baggage to inhibit him. For which we must all be thankful.