Peter Halley
Previous generations of abstract painters described their rectangular coloured compositions as either representations of universal and harmonic balance - like Mondrian or Malevich; or as evocations of the Supreme, notions beyond human understanding - such as Newman or Rothko.
Halley suggests another way of interpreting geometric abstraction. For the artist, it can be re-interpreted as an analogy of the underlying structures that govern technological societies.
In his essays, the artist exposes his case like a re-contextualized abstraction that represents not an escape towards mysticism, but a social and aesthetic critic.
The style of Peter Halley’s work reaffirms Jean Baudrillard’s idea of “simulation” as the principle to follow in late XXth century western culture.
Cells and conducts became recurrent images in Halley’s works, being still presently used. All types of metaphors can be read in his work: from computer chips to rooms or communication lines, which in turn, transform the hard edges of colour paint into cliffs to separate the different colours.
The cell typically has the granular texture of the false stucco, of which Halley claims to be reminiscent of “motel ceilings.”
The opening of Peter Halley’s first gallery exhibition in Spain was accompanied by a lecture at the Círculo de Bellas Artes titled Works and Projects 1980 - 1996. Since the mid-1980s, his paintings had been included in group exhibitions such as Art and Its Double (1986) at La Caixa and New Abstractions (1996) at the Palacio de Velázquez, in 1991 the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía had dedicated a solo exhibition to him.
The exhibition draws on the museum’s own extensive collection of works by the artist—including masterpieces from across his long career—supplemented by key works from other public and private collections, and provides an extended glimpse into the prolific production of this 91-year-old painter. Featuring about ninety works—including some of the artist’s most important paintings—the exhibition will offer visitors a retrospective overview of this seminal artist’s oeuvre from the 1950s to today.
