Basel | ArtRegion: Basel - Oberrhein

von Bartha

Terry Haggerty: Into the Wind

11. Februar – 30. April 2022

Entitled Into the wind, TERRY HAGGERTY’S exhibition consists of a brand-new body of work, shown for the first time at von Bartha. Made of aluminum, bonded to plywood, a technical innovation in Haggerty’s oeuvre, and fabricated in Italy, the sloping edges, the cut-out sections and the shapes reflect Haggerty’s time spent living near the Mediterranean Sea. In their reduction to what is mostly monochrome color and their formal simplification, Haggerty‘s varying line/stripe combinations oscillate between the planimetric structure of the surface and the illusory perception of three-dimensionality. With a lyrical appearance, the shaped forms appear distorted, curving away with hard strips cutting through, a departure from Haggerty’s typical style of flat works featured in previous shows. The paintings are conflicting in their dual ability to present contrasting actions of flatness and perspective.

The cuts, penetrating at various angles, leave a channel that is both structural and destabilizing to the sail motif—letting the wind pass through and giving the impression of an invisible mast or pillar of support. The exhibition is a cohesive body of works that flow from one color to another, each in its own shade, tonally shifting subtly from a deep sea blue to a murkier darker hue.