PETER HALLEY IN CONVERSATION WITH JUAN BOLIVAR PAGE 4/78

PETER In 1987 I saw the the tragic event of September 11th,

you wrote about living through the
work of the artist
HALLEY Peter Halley atThe
aftermath in downtown Manhattan,
and you wrote about the people of New
IN Saatchi Gallery,
York the energy of New York
in particular.
CONVER- Boundary Road, in PH: I havent talked about this publicly
before. I was living about ten blocks from
SATION the exhibition NY Art the World Trade Centre on September
Now(Parts I & II). 11th. When the first plane hit the tower,
WITH His paintings were to
I was at the gym, and like other people
I thought it was an accident, and then
JUAN have an immediate the second plane hit, and I went out on
the street. The towers were billowing
BOLIVAR impact on a new smoke, and you couldnt help but see
dozens bodies tiny in the distance
FOR generation of artists, falling through the air. I turned away,
and his practice has not wanting to watch these people falling
TURPS been at the forefront
to their deaths, and then I saw the first
tower collapse. It just crumpled in
BANANA of my research ever on itself.
Of course they were telling people to
since then. evacuate the neighbourhood, but I didnt
want to leave my studio and my life
there. Fortunately I was in a spot that
In 2013, many years after was just beyond the reach of the smoke
this first encounter, I was able to and fumes. So I was also there during
interview him to discuss his most recent the rescue efforts during the following
work, which had just been exhibited week when no one could get in or out. It
atWaddington Custot Galleries: was a very powerful experience and I
Peter Halley,Paintings 2012-2013(11 experienced it as a New Yorker.
April - 3 May 2013). I was born in New York, and I grew up
JB: Youve been very busy. Last year in New York. My father was in politics
there was an exhibition at Waddington in New York. On my fathers side, the
Galleries, a collaboration with Alessandro family has been in New York for several
Mendini at Mary Boone in New York. generations, so by intellectual inclination
This year there was a big survey of your I really am a New Yorker.
work at the Muse de lArt Moderne JB: New York is built on solid cold stone
in Saint-Etienne, France, and Rizzoli people have had to dig into this stone to
released a book of collected material from build the city. I suppose we take that for
index magazine, entitled INDEX: A to Z. granted. For me there is a contradiction
PH: Its been great. its built on stone, but its also very warm.
JB: When James Joyce and Marcel PH: I was born in 1953.
Proust first met, it was intended to be a Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism,
great meeting of minds, but all they did and Pop Art were the art movements
was talk about cakes! Im not suggesting of my childhood. I identified with these
we talk about cakes, but I dont want to movements quite personally it was all
go over familiar territory either. When going on in the town where I grew up.
you had your exhibition at Waddington Its a factor that influences my work in
Galleries in 2001, just a few weeks after a way that most artists wouldnt share.

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Raising Hope I
2013
Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on canvas
121.9 x 99.1 cm

Courtesy of Waddington-Custot Galleries

 PETER HALLEY IN CONVERSATION WITH JUAN BOLIVAR PAGE 6/78

Peter Halley & Alessandro Mendini Collaboration.

Mary Boone Gallery, NYC, June 2013 Warhols Factory on 47th Street was in Brooklyn is completely different than
Image: Peter Halley Studio just one block from where I lived as a the one I had as a young person. You are
child. At the same time, its been a topic looking at the centre from outside.
of great interest to me how much New The landscape in Brooklyn is more
York has changed since 1980, and how horizontal. Its quieter, and theres less
artists have become much more spread density. I think it may be more like
out. The former community called London, where people seem to be more
Downtown, where everybody lived within spread out.
a square mile or two has disappeared. JB: You have written about how emotion
The everyday experience of artists living is experienced in the contemporary

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Raising Hope II
world. You rejected the grandiose, workstations, and individualities. 2013
Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on canvas
operatic expression of feeling, claiming PH: Youre talking about my essay, 114.3 x 73.7 cm
that what is most important is how we A Short History of Affects. It was written Courtesy of Waddington-Custot Galleries
respond to space. You wrote that we in 1993, and things have changed a lot
can feel part of the city and yet separate. since then. My main concern was how,
You once called it, that feeling of being a in the mass media, people still talk about
bit spacey. Your cells are metaphors for feeling overjoyed, enraged, despairing,
the home, the workstation, or a persons or wretched, and events as being
individuality. And you describe how wonderful, cataclysmic, horrendous, etc.
those cells are connected to other homes, These grand emotions all come from
 PETER HALLEY IN CONVERSATION WITH JUAN BOLIVAR PAGE 8/78

Above: Rectify
2013
Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on canvas the nineteenth century romanticism. JB. Looking at the new index compilation,
127 x 137.2 cm
And I said that the emotions that we INDEX A to Z, I realised that one can
Top right: Bang Goes The Theory
2013 experience today are quite different, that make a direct connection with Warhol
Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on canvas
116.8. x 123.2 cm
they are much more subtle, ambiguous, and the Factory. You were presenting
and ambivalent. I also tied contemporary people like Juergen Teller, Wolfgang
Bottom right: Camp
2013 emotional expression to an involvement Tillmans, Marc Jacobs, Bjrk, Scarlett
Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on canvas
101.6 x 114.3 cm
with spatiality. I talk about contemporary Johansson that was a really eclectic
emotional parlance using words like far cultural mix. You werent just a one-
All courtesy of Waddington-Custot Galleries out, spaced out, freaked out, hyped party-politics magazine. You were
up, up-tight. And then there are words trying to capture the whole spectrum of
like cool, chill, and hot that bring in energy of New York in a similar way to
both space and temperature. the Factory.
JB: Someone said to me the other day, PH: Yes, I was always fascinated by how
Thats sick. Its a new London slang. Warhol allowed Bob Colacello to cover
I said what do you mean - is that bad? a whole crowd of people connected to
But it means that something is good. the Ronald Reagan White House in the
PH: Thats been around at least a 1980s, even though Warhols own politics
decade. It comes from African American were definitely left-of-centre.
hip hop, I think. Its an example of But we never went that far. In fact,
reversing the meaning of a word so that during the 2004 election, we put Tom
the new meaning is only understood by Ford on the cover of the magazine urging
members of an insider group. people to vote for John Kerry. And we

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Cult
2013
Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and
Roll-a-Tex on canva
124.5 x 81.3 cm

Courtesy of Waddington-
Custot Galleries
PETER HALLEY IN CONVERSATION WITH JUAN BOLIVAR PAGE 10/78

Top left: Supernatural

2013
Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on
canva
101.6 x 114.3 cm

Bottom left: Revenge

2013
Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on
canva
109.3 x 127 cm

Above: Scandal
2013
Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on
canva
134.6 x 132.1 cm

All courtesy of Waddington-Custot Galleries

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 FEATURE PAGE 11/78

Top left: Glee

interviewed Teresa Kerry, John Kerrys JB: Going back to your exhibition last 2013
extraordinary spouse. When George year at Waddington, there seems to Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on canva
110.5 x 109.2
Bush got re-elected, it felt like the end have been a change in your practice.
Bottom left: Suburgatory
of the world. But it definitely wasnt Its amazing to me how you and artists 2013
Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on canva
one-party. We covered everyone from like Albers and Mondrian work in 120.65 x 139.7 cm
Howard Zinn to Will Ferrell. series through their lives, developing a Above: Revolution
particular motif over time. 2013
Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic and Roll-a-Tex on canva
JB: A lot of those people werent in Whats interesting about your work over 134.6 x 132.1 cm
New York. the last year or two is that you have
PH: It was a much more interconnected reinvented that motif. It is still the prison, All courtesy of Waddington-Custot Galleries

experience. The internet already existed. the cell, the conduit, but somehow
It felt brand new. We were able to email theyve acquired a different personality.
somebody in London to ask them to take I find your recent paintings quite
photographs of an interviewee. humorous. Theres a shift from the cell
And someone photographing Marc being an interior space, like the interior
Jacobs could email photos from Paris. of an egg, to these more recent paintings
And of course, things could be recorded in which the cell becomes the egg itself
on the telephone across the world. looking out at us.
Our core identity was really connected PH: People sometimes dismiss my work
to New York, but it was also a kind of because they say that the paintings dont
nascent global experience that has now change. On the one hand it drives me
become commonplace. crazy, and on the other hand I find it
 PETER HALLEY IN CONVERSATION WITH JUAN BOLIVAR PAGE 12/78

kind of humorous. The creative giants of other factors at work as well. Until about
my youth were artists like Czanne and 2000, to be called a colourist was actually
Barnett Newman. They painted the a negative term. Beginning in the 1970s,
same old thing everyday. I read there was a tremendous reaction against
something recently that said I was Clement Greenberg and American
morally reprehensible because my colour field painting. At that time,
paintings dont change! Ive always seen Greenberg was seen as the powerful
the project of modern art as being about judgemental father figure of American
the tension between stasis and change. art who claimed that art moved in
Czanne paints that same mountain over only one direction, towards flatness
and over. Is each painting different or and materiality, and that colour had to
is each painting the same? He seizes on be the dominant expressive element.
the idea of painting the same mountain For Greenberg, if art didnt conform
as a means of exploring the issue of what to that model, the art didnt matter.
changes in each painting. I very much By the 1970s, just about everyone had
appreciate your reading of my new work. vehemently rejected his model. So, until
I hope its an example of how change sometime around 2000, someone could
occurs even if the artist is concentrating have said that I was a colourist and that
on, shall we say, a very static set of signs. would have meant my work was really
JB: People often say Peter Halley equals bad or even reactionary.
Day-Glo paint, and I tell them its not JB: Youve talked about the difference
just Day-Glo. Thats part of it, but theres between your approach and that of
a real element of the colourist in you. Joseph Albers, who emphasised the
Peter Halley
Image: Jeremy Liebman I know that you did your dissertation on behaviour of colour as separate from the
Matisse, and you often talk about your material from which it was made and
interest in Picasso. your approach, which centres on the
PH: My strongest influence, in terms behaviour of actual physical paint.
of colour, has always been Picasso, PH: Absolutely. When I was teaching at
especially the paintings from the early Yale, I taught a class on colour focusing
1930s. As a colourist, Picasso can be on paint. Traditional colour theory is
quite humorous, unlike Matisse who is based on hue and value, what an abstract
always harmonious and never irreverent. red would do against an abstract green,
Im also interested in both Andy Warhol but I was also interested in how different
and Frank Stella. kinds of paint interact. Over the years,
With his Protractor Paintings in the 1960s, in my own paintings, I like to juxtapose
Stella began juxtaposing Day-Glo paint Day-Glo red with, say, artists cadmium
with traditional artists colours to create red, and pearlescent naphthol red.
a very dynamic sense of push-pull. That Im interested in how those different
was definitely been a big influence on reds interact.
me. On the other hand, since Stellas JB: because pearlescent colours have
work is so sculptural, he doesnt really a different physical quality. They are
have to use colour to establish the space slightly reflective like a dull mirror.
in the painting but since the forms in PH: I got interested in pearlescent colour
my paintings are so flat, the colour really in the 1990s because I began to notice
does create the space. how so many objects were painted in
JB: People often dont see that as a pearlescent colours, like shampoo bottles,
neo-plastic exploration because they are automobiles, computers it was even
fixated on your writings and the theories used in nail polish. I began to use it
surrounding your work. because I saw so much of it around me.
PH: Yes, thats frustrating. But there are JB: I read somewhere that in the early

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twentieth century, machines were about for example, addressed the issue of
always showing the mechanisms you bigness what is it like to live in a city
had to see the cogs, the pistons, and the of twenty million people, and how do the
chains. But, in our era, everything has to commercial mega-structures where we
be hidden behind a smooth veneer live, work, and shop effect us?
a pearlescent veneer. JB: Youve repeatedly made reference
PH: I think youre referring to the to humour. In the end, is that a major
cultural theorist Frederick Jameson who aspect of your work?
differentiated between modernist and PH: Im inclined to a creative approach
post-modernist design aesthetics. in which humour is a major motivator.
Today the most obvious example is At the same time, in the era in which we
computers of all kinds laptops, iPads, live, I think that humour is probably the
and smartphones everything becomes a only tool we can still use to accomplish
dematerialised little pearlescent box, and the function of critique in a situation in
we have no idea whats going on inside. which real opposition is no Hoodie - Juan Bolivar
2008
JB: Youve always been interested in longer possible. Acrylic on canvas
38 x 39 cm
Philip Guston and his use of humour in JB: To challenge critique in a sense?
Courtesy of the artist
his work. PH: Well, not just to challenge critique,
PH: He was a significant influence on but just to challenge anything we
me in the early 1980s. In his cartoon automatically believe to be true.
paintings, the elements are organised JB: I began my studies at Central St.
frontally and often placed on a kind of Martins in 1985, and I remember one of
pediment, like mine are. I responded the first things I saw, other than people
to his black existentialist humour - the like Picasso, was your work and Jeff
bloodshot eyeball under the bare light Koons at the Saatchi Gallery in 1987.
bulb smoking a cigarette having a beer I remember being drawn to the works.
painting a painting. Its a grim but funny PH: You know, the irony is for me,
vision, and it sort of related to the way is that the exhibition created something
I imagined myself in a prison in a bleak of a mess. All the works had been
abstract landscape thats how I saw my acquired within one year for something
work at the beginning of the 1980s. called the Saatchi Collection implying
Then I went on to envisioning the prison that the works would be kept together.
and the cell as connected to other prisons But they sold all the work within a year
and cells. afterward! At the same time there were
JB: And thats the genesis of your a lot of people like you who saw that
mature work? exhibition, and it seems to have had a
PH: The question Ive been asking big impact on the young generation of
myself since the 1980s is how have the artists in the UK at the time. So maybe
social conditions that we experience as that shows why I am so interested in the
human being changed? You know with concept of humour.
the advent of the digital age and the
ubiquitous presence of suburban living
arrangements, we have become much
more detached. And in the west, we live
in a world that is almost devoid of any
kind of material threat. I am trying to
address a global situation in which there
is rapid ongoing change. I think other
people have done it better. Im a big
admirer of Rem Koolhaas, who has,