On the occasion of Spotlight: Peter Halley, The FLAG Art Foundation will host an after-hours viewing and poetry reading with poet Elaine Equi and artist Peter Halley on Wednesday, June 11, 6-8 PM.
About:
Peter Halley (b. 1953, New York, NY) is an American artist recognized as a key figure in the Neo-Conceptualist movement of the 1980s. Since the 1980s, Halley’s lexicon of “prisons,” “cells,” and “conduits,” have been used to examine the technological forces that regulate daily life. Known for his use of fluorescent colors and Roll-a-Tex, Halley embraces materials that are anti-naturalistic and commercially manufactured. Halley’s work has been the subject of major one-person exhibitions at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (2024); Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Mudam), Luxembourg, Luxembourg (2023); the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA (2015); Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Saint-Étienne, France (2014); Museum Folkwang Essen, Germany (1998); Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (1997-98); and Musée d’art contemporain (CAPC), Bordeaux, France (1991). He has executed installations at the NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL (2024); Museo Nivola, Orani, Sardinia, Italy (2021); Greene Naftali, New York, NY (2019); Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2019); Lever House, New York, NY (2018); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany (2016); Disjecta, Portland, OR (2012); the Gallatin School, New York University, New York, NY (2008, 2017); the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (1997); and the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX (1995). Halley served as professor and director of the MFA painting program at the Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT, from 2002 to 2011. From 1996 to 2005 he published INDEX Magazine, which featured interviews with figures from diverse creative fields. In 2013, Halley’s essays on art and culture, in which he explores themes from French critical theory and the impact of burgeoning digital technology, were published in Selected Essays, 1981-2001. Halley’s work is in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and Tate Modern, London, UK, among others.
Elaine Equi (b. 1953, Oak Park, IL) is a poet living and working in New York, NY. Equi has published numerous books, including Voice-Over (1998, San Francisco State Poetry Award); Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems (2007, finalist, L.A. Times Book Award); and The Intangibles (2019). Equi has taught in numerous creative writing programs, including New York University, City College of New York, and The New School, New York, NY. Equi’s writing has been included in many publications, including the American Poetry Review, Brooklyn Rail, Big Other, The Nation, The New Yorker, among others. She is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship (2024). Her work has been translated into Italian, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic. Her most recent collection is Out of the Blank (2025) from Coffee House Press.