Inspired by the city grid, jail cell windows, high-rise buildings and other structures designed to regulate and control human activity, Peter Halley’s Neo-Geo abstraction has exceeded into own regulatory bounds in a dramatic, maze-like installation at Chelsea’s Greene Naftali Gallery. Up and down stairs, around blind bends and through an eye-popping assault of day-glo color, visitors find their way through an environment that feels as if we’d stepped into one of Halley’s paintings. Here, a painting composed of stacked forms has an altar-like presence at the top of a vividly green staircase. (On view through Dec 20th).
Peter Halley, installation view of ‘Heterotopia II’ at Greene Naftali Gallery, Nov 2019.
Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education.
For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine.
Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)
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