Ceal Floyer
07 Apr - 06 May 2006
CEAL FLOYER
Location: 52-54 Bell Street
Lisson Gallery announces a solo exhibition of new work by Ceal Floyer previewing Thursday 6th April from 6 - 8 pm. The work of Ceal Floyer is nothing if not succinct - sometimes it can be pretty hard to spot: the image of a light switch, for instance, projected on to the wall of a gallery precisely where you would expect a light switch to be. But if her work can seem minimalist, she might just as easily make something large. Floyer's work, in a way, distils the “eureka!” moment. It captures the crux point between expectation and fact. It exposes the flip-side of life, it plays with the absurd. It has a quicksilver conceptual wit. “There's a fine line between making sense of the world and making nonsense of it,” she says.” Rachel Campbell-Johnston, South Bank Show Breakthrough Award, Sunday Times, 6 January 2006 In this exhibition Ceal Floyer presents a poetic, quietly humorous, rigorously minimalist body of work incorporating sound work, a light projection, photographs and incorporated readymade objects. 'Genuine Reduction', 2005 is an assisted readymade sign typically seen advertising a sale or price reduction in shops. The large street-facing gallery window acts as a “shop front”. By removing the 's' at the end of the word 'reductions' making it a literal reduction, Floyer creates a play on meaning and action, as well as words. 'Double Act' 2005 is a 'play in two parts' suggesting a stage set whereby Floyer uses a theatre spotlight to project the image of a red theatre curtain onto the gallery wall. While the work plays with theatricality, it is in fact quite structural - a simple physics trick of light projected onto a right angle, forcing the light into two focal planes; one on the wall and one on the floor. It is a slide projection mimicking the function of a theatre spot. While the projection appears to be a spotlight shone on a curtain, it is actually a beam of light projecting the image of the curtain. The work becomes a binary visual gesture where everything revolves around the idea of two parts, from the title to the elements and media to the distortion of the light itself. 'Reversed' 2005 is a colour print of a simple black and white plastic 'reserved' sign, the kind used on tables in restaurants. Floyer flips the image so that it reads back to front. The title of the work then becomes integral as the eye is momentarily thrown by its perception of the conflict of the language, the image and its title. Again, there is that 'eureka moment' when the eye and brain at last conspire to understand. 'Drain' 2005, is a happy marriage between hardware and sound, the aural and visual. In this work Floyer places a simple round speaker component on the floor along with its flex and essential leads. Sporadically the speaker emits the sampled (store-bought) sound of water being sucked down a drain. Although the small, round, black speaker suggests a plug, the work is nonetheless allusive rather than illusive as it refers to what is not there rather than what is. Ceal Floyer lives and works in Berlin and London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Portikus, Frankfurt; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham Forthcoming solo exhibitions include: Powerplant, Toronto and Swiss Institute, New York.
Location: 52-54 Bell Street
Lisson Gallery announces a solo exhibition of new work by Ceal Floyer previewing Thursday 6th April from 6 - 8 pm. The work of Ceal Floyer is nothing if not succinct - sometimes it can be pretty hard to spot: the image of a light switch, for instance, projected on to the wall of a gallery precisely where you would expect a light switch to be. But if her work can seem minimalist, she might just as easily make something large. Floyer's work, in a way, distils the “eureka!” moment. It captures the crux point between expectation and fact. It exposes the flip-side of life, it plays with the absurd. It has a quicksilver conceptual wit. “There's a fine line between making sense of the world and making nonsense of it,” she says.” Rachel Campbell-Johnston, South Bank Show Breakthrough Award, Sunday Times, 6 January 2006 In this exhibition Ceal Floyer presents a poetic, quietly humorous, rigorously minimalist body of work incorporating sound work, a light projection, photographs and incorporated readymade objects. 'Genuine Reduction', 2005 is an assisted readymade sign typically seen advertising a sale or price reduction in shops. The large street-facing gallery window acts as a “shop front”. By removing the 's' at the end of the word 'reductions' making it a literal reduction, Floyer creates a play on meaning and action, as well as words. 'Double Act' 2005 is a 'play in two parts' suggesting a stage set whereby Floyer uses a theatre spotlight to project the image of a red theatre curtain onto the gallery wall. While the work plays with theatricality, it is in fact quite structural - a simple physics trick of light projected onto a right angle, forcing the light into two focal planes; one on the wall and one on the floor. It is a slide projection mimicking the function of a theatre spot. While the projection appears to be a spotlight shone on a curtain, it is actually a beam of light projecting the image of the curtain. The work becomes a binary visual gesture where everything revolves around the idea of two parts, from the title to the elements and media to the distortion of the light itself. 'Reversed' 2005 is a colour print of a simple black and white plastic 'reserved' sign, the kind used on tables in restaurants. Floyer flips the image so that it reads back to front. The title of the work then becomes integral as the eye is momentarily thrown by its perception of the conflict of the language, the image and its title. Again, there is that 'eureka moment' when the eye and brain at last conspire to understand. 'Drain' 2005, is a happy marriage between hardware and sound, the aural and visual. In this work Floyer places a simple round speaker component on the floor along with its flex and essential leads. Sporadically the speaker emits the sampled (store-bought) sound of water being sucked down a drain. Although the small, round, black speaker suggests a plug, the work is nonetheless allusive rather than illusive as it refers to what is not there rather than what is. Ceal Floyer lives and works in Berlin and London. Recent solo exhibitions include: Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Portikus, Frankfurt; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham Forthcoming solo exhibitions include: Powerplant, Toronto and Swiss Institute, New York.