Peter Halley & Steph Gonzalez-Turner at 'T' Space Rhinebeck

In the electric landscape of 1980s New York City, Peter Halley liberated the square from its prior minimalist stage and set it on fire for a new generation. Using geometry to express the physical and psychological aspects of contemporary urban space in the burgeoning digital age, his dynamic and radically colored paintings introduced a bold new abstraction. Since 1995, Halley has been world-renowned for producing multimedia, site-specific installations in which he pioneered the use of wall-sized digital prints in conjunction with other elements. Most recently, his architectural installations have been exhibited at venues such as the Museo Nivola, Orani, Sardinia (2021); Greene Naftali, New York (2019); The Academy of Fine Arts Gallery, Venice (2019); and Lever House, New York (2018).

For this exhibition, Peter Halley responds to ‘T’ Space’s unique use of symmetry and asymmetry. Inspired by Walter Gropius, Halley’s intervention will use planes of painted color to further articulate the existing architecture, with particular attention to exploring the composition of its apertures.

Halley’s installations have frequently served as opportunities to collaborate with other artists, designers, and architects including Lauren Clay, Matali Crasset, and Alessandro Mendini. For this installation at ‘T’ Space, he is collaborating with the gifted emerging sculptor, Steph Gonzalez-Turner, to generate a stimulating dialog between three arts: painting, sculpture, and architecture. Halley and Gonzalez-Turner’s rich artistic relationship and collaboration blossomed as they worked together in Halley’s studio.

Gonzalez-Turner’s artistic practice focuses on architectural intervention. Since 2023, she has created freestanding sculptures using dyed and painted plywood parquetry, and this will be her first time exhibiting this pivotal new body of work. At ‘T’ Space, Gonzalez-Turner will share these vertical, plywood poles, whose anthropomorphic presence resonates with Giacometti’s thin, vertical figures of the 1950s.

Gonzalez-Turner’s sculptures collapse temporary elements of the built environment—improvisational structures of street level infrastructure and scaffolding, cast cloth remnants and debris—with the shapes of high-rise architecture and setbacks. They behave like models, beams, floors and textiles, existing in an architectural imaginary or hypnagogic state. Made with tactile, low-relief parquetry and assembled into faceted shapes, the sculptures are both excerpts and composites of fictitious space.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication, featuring an interview with the artists and Steven Holl. Both Halley and Gonzalez-Turner will participate in our esteemed Virtual Public Lecture Series, presenting further insight into each of their practices.

Steph Gonzalez-Turner will be present in the gallery during Upstate Art Weekend, offering a special opportunity to speak with visitors about the exhibition on Sunday, July 21 from 12:30 – 3:00 PM.