The Schirn Ring by Peter Halley

The Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt is exhibiting The Schirn Ring by American artist Peter Halley. This art installation is grounded in the artist's understanding of the cultural and architectural context it was created for. 
 



Summer is around the corner, so if you're heading to Frankfurt am Main, Germany for a holiday, why not take in this exhibition? Until 21 August, the Schirn Kunsthalle is presenting “The Schirn Ring” by American artist Peter Halley (*1953). 



This is an artistic exploration of the actual Schirn Kunsthalle architectural space, one of Europe's premier exhibition locations for “visual arts” since it opened in 1986. Its mission is to be a meeting point to share critical reflection and that showcases the importance of art to our society, and it invited Peter Halley to create a site-specific installation.



In developing his work, the artist first made an intensive study of the Schirn Rotunda and he sees its form as echoing that of the nearby Neo-classical Paulskirche; it is also on an axis with the nearby cathedral and lastly explores the similarities with the circular shape of the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. What better metaphor to discuss the explosive energy of his artworks?





The Schirn Ring is a multipart installation - it starts in the area outside and develops across about 450 square metres, using the two ring-like galleries of the Rotunda and the exhibition space on the second floor. Peter Halley has designed an art installation that draws on both current and older elements of the artist’s oeuvre and that includes that geometry, which he insists is always tied to social realities. 



The Schirn Ring by Peter Halley works its magic on visitors with its explosive energy and kinetic yellow, drawing them in to explore and thereby gain a different spatial understanding than usual. The architecture surfaces become the artist's very own canvas, where he expresses his creativity, again underscoring the many relations that exist between the various artistic disciplines that the Schirn Kunsthalle fosters.

Christiane Bürklein

“The Schirn Ring” exhibition by Peter Halley 
12 May to 21 August 2016 
Location: Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany
Peter Halley. The Schirn Ring © Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2016, Photo: Norbert Miguletz 
Find out more: http://www.schirn.de/en