Already 30 years ago, Peter Halley ( 1953) was far ahead of his time. With his Prison and Cell paint ings, he mani fested the reasoning, inter de pen den cies and orga ni za tional forms of the artwork and the social space. Since the 1980s, Peter Halley exam ines in his geomet rical abstract painting and site-specific instal la tions the spatial as well as commu ni ca tion and orga ni za tional struc tures that domi nate everyday life. In today"s world, where our lives are influ enced and modi fied by algo rithms of the digital industry and by the surface appeal of the media world, we find ourselves, as it were, amidst a Halley-ian compo si tion.In an instal la tion exclu sively devel oped for the free acces sible Rotunda of the SCHIRN, Halley will work inten sively with the quite specific spatial condi tions. The combi na tion of various motives from the spec trum of the artist oeuvre will create both an explo sive energy field and an analyt ical map of his work. Halley will fo
rm a cell for a key work from his histor ical oeuvre; an art work that could hardly be any larger, more elab o rate, or more expan sive and which, in turn, feeds back to the orig inal nucleus of the artist"s creative power.
Max Hollein ist Direktor der Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.
