May 1 – June 5, 2010
Terry Haggerty has in recent years become known to a wide audience, due to numerous exhibitions and his spectacular wall installations, most recently at the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium, CCNOA in Brussels, or Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. In what is now his third individual show at Kuttner Siebert Galerie, Terry Hagerty shows his newest works, which represent the logical development of what has always characterized his painting.
The dictum of abstraction in Terry Haggerty is not only shown in the reduced structure of what is represented but also in the display of materiality. Nowhere is the work of the artist hand visible, and in so doing the concept of artistic uniqueness that accompanies gesture can be understood. But the painting is unique precisely because the absence of the artistic hand, at the same time the most superficial character of minimal art, can underscore the works’ object character.
Terry Haggerty’s works are marked by their extraordinary perfection, whereby several layers of varnish seal the surface of the image, thus keeping the visitor at a distance. But he does not succeed in refusing the visual impact. And it is even more heightened in his new works by way of the deformation of the support, through the sculptural accentuation of the painted sculptures. Distortions of the right angle such as buckling, stretching, or constriction underscore the forces immanent to the image in perception. Finally, what is painted condenses more tightly to an object, the support becomes the body of the image so that it is no longer possible to decide whether what is painted follows the support or if the body follows the painterly structure.