“To have the opportunity to admire the art by Peter Halley (New York, 1953) is a luxury that must be enjoyed. The American artist lands in Spain once again, and he does it in the new López de la Serna CAC space in Madrid. This exhibition room has decided to count on the geometric forms and colors of this genius as inaugural element for this new phase as contemporary art center. (...)
The show arrives to López de la Serna CAC under the title of The Early Paintings and is made up of a careful selection of paintings from the second half of the 1980s, a foundational period in Halley's career, his formative years. (...)
The artist himself says to Status his work at the time was based on "a criticism, or rather a comment on the Modernism”. Halley thinks 20th Century Modernism was based on utopian ideas and aspirations to spirituality. Halley assures he and other members of his generation in art, architecture, music and even literature "found it was impossible to believe in those ideals for longer". In his particular case, his main way of criticism is parody: “I believe in humor as a powerful force in creativity", the artist says”.
