Peter Halley (b. 1953, New York City) is an American artist who came to prominence as a central figure of the Neo-Conceptualist movement of the 1980s. His paintings redeploy the language of geometric abstraction to explore the organization of social space in the digital era.

Since the 1980s, Halley’s lexicon has included three elements: “prisons” and “cells,” connected by “conduits,” which are used in his paintings to explore the technologically determined space and pathways that regulate daily life. Using fluorescent color and Roll a-Tex, a commercial paint additive that provides readymade texture, Halley embraces materials that are anti-naturalistic and commercially manufactured. In the mid 1990s Halley pioneered the use of wallsized digital prints in his site-specific installations.

He has executed installations at Museo Nivola, Orani, Sardinia (2021); Greene Naftali, New York (2019); Venice Biennale (2019); Lever House, New York (2018); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2016); Disjecta, Portland (2012); Gallatin School, New York University, (2008, 2017); the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1997); and the Dallas Museum of Art (1995). Halley served as professor and director of the MFA painting program at the Yale School of Art from 2002 to 2011.

From 1996 to 2005, he published INDEX Magazine, which featured interviews with figures working in a variety of creative fields. Halley is also known for his essays on art and culture, written in the 1980s and 1990s, in which he explores themes from French critical theory and the impact of burgeoning digital technology.

Halley’s work is held in over 60 public collections worldwide including: the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Broad Art Foundation, Los Angeles; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Sammlung Marx, Berlin; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Seoul Museum of Art;Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Modern, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.