Peter Halley has become famous for his geometrical-abstract paintings and graphic works as representative of Neo-Geo.
Peter Halley was born in New York in 1953. He initially studied at the acclaimed Yale University in New Haven from 1971 to 1975 and eventually completed his studies at the University of New Orleans in 1978.
Peter Halley worked in the style of geometrical abstraction in the 1980s. In his art this method is based on a clear conception: To Peter Halley geometrical abstraction does not mean non-representativeness, but rather representativeness in a diagrammatic sense. The geometrical form has a concrete meaning to Peter Halley. Following Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard, he differentiates between "hard geometry" and "soft geometry", which he finds evident in society as well. The geometrical form can be translated into a social form.
Peter Halley's abstractions, influenced not only by geometrical pre- and post-war art but also by Minimal Art and Post-Minimalism, must be seen in line with works by artists, such as Ashley Bickerton, Meyer Vaisman or Peter Schuyff. What these artists have in common is the neo-conceptualist approach.
Next to being a painter and graphic artist, Peter Halley is also active as art critic and lecturer, for instance at Columbia University in New York or at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Since 2002 Peter Halley has also been the Director of Graduate Studies in Painting and Printmaking at Yale University.
Works by Peter Halley are in possession of acclaimed museums and collections, such as the New York Guggenheim Museum or the Munich collection Goetz. Peter Halley lives and works in New York.