Peter Halley, Black Cell with Underground Sequence, 1986

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three attached panels
acrylic, fluorescent acrylic, Flashe, and Roll-a-Tex on canvas

175 x 289 x 8.5 cm
68 7/8 x 113 3/4 x 3 3/8 in

'Black Cell with Underground Sequence' combines large-scale black, green and blue rectangular panels to create an iconic image
of an oversized black cell hovering over two rectangular fluorescent panels. The black cell is painted with light-absorbing black Roll-a-Tex on canvas, creating a surface often associated with the walls and ceilings of suburban houses. The two fluorescent underground blue and green panels under the central black cell suggest the glowing light of an LED sign.

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Influenced by artists such as Kazimir Malevich, Josef Albers, Barnett Newman the American artist Peter Halley is well-known for his geometrical paintings transforming the paradigmatic square of abstract art into referential icons that he labelled “prisons”, “conduits” and “cells”, referring to urban space especially those of prisons and clinics, which is reminiscent of the French philosopher Michel Foucault’s theory on the panopticon and the development of modern prison. Today, Halley’s works is included in numerous public collections, like the Tate Modern, London, England, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA, the Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea, the CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France.

Provenance

(Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris)

Private Collection, Paris

(Waddington Custot, London)

Private Collection, Brussels

Exhibitions

Peter Halley, Galerie Daniel Templon, 18 Oct – 22 Nov 1986, Paris, France

1986, MARUANI MERCIER Gallery, 29 Oct – 5 Nov 2020, Brussels, Belgium

Peter Halley: Early Works, MARUANI MERCIER Gallery, 22 Mar – 15 Apr, 2023, Brussels, Belgium

Literature

Peter Halley, exhibition catalogue (Paris: Galerie Daniel Templon, 1986), 21, ill. (color).

Thomas Zaunschirm and Alexander Puhringer, “Neo-Conceptualists: The New York Scene,” Noema Art Magazine, no. 11 (April–May 1987): 31, ill. (color).

Cara Jordan, Clément Dirié, ed., Peter Halley: Paintings of the 1980s, The Catalogue Raisonné, (Zurich: JRP | Ringier, 2019), 112, ill. (color).

Peter Halley United States, b. 1953

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Peter Halley United States, b. 1953

Further images

Provenance

Exhibitions

Literature