Conduits. Paintings from the 1980s

Assembling thirty key works from public and private collections, this retrospective survey presents paintings alongside previously unseen drawings, sketches and notes from the first decade of Peter Halley’s career. Peter Halley. Conduits: Paintings from the 1980s is the first museum survey of Halley’s 1980s work in over thirty years. Drawing extensively on Halley’s critical writing, interviews and unpublished notes it seeks to re-evaluate this early work and its subjects of alienation, isolation, confinement and connectivity within the context of its production. The exhibition reflects upon both the artistic and critical landscape of New York in the 1980s and a period of social history shaped by economic expansion and collapse, nuclear threat and the AIDS epidemic.