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Indepth Arts News:
"Ceal Floyer: The Artist's First Solo Show in Sweden"
2002-11-20 until 2002-12-19
Index - Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation
Stockholm, ,
SE
It could be said that the artistic investigations of British artist, Ceal Floyer, fall somewhere between Marcel Duchamp's linguistic ambiguities and the strict, spatial methods reminiscent of conceptual minimalism of the sixties. In combination with such predecessors, Floyers unsurpassed feeling for the singular detail; her curiosity concerning how an observer at all recognises and identifies an image according to the perceptual conditions, forms an irresistible ménage a trois.
Ever since early work such as Light Switch (1992), a projected image of a switch, or Carousel (1996), a vinyl record playing the sound of a working slide projector, Floyer, in an intelligent and convincing manner has shown which tradition she follows, and with an authority - even though authority is not exactly the right word in this context - she safeguards this legacy in work after work. It has been stated that in the artist's ephemeral and, in most cases, immaterial world, there are continual references to illusionism, opinions the artist herself disputes. According to Floyer, all her work is characterised primarily by an effort to convince the observer that something really exists and is part of the world, even if this was not necessarily needed to question, or even state, to begin with.
The exhibition at Index is the artist's first solo show in Sweden. Floyer has worked with both the upper and lower galleries, employing a spatial context that enjoins both spaces in a meaningful entity. The lower gallery features a video projection, Waterline (2002), installed in a way that shows an express feeling for the architectural framework. The projection shows water rising inexorably from
floor to ceiling, therefore playing with a kind of hydrophobic scenario: a room slowly filling up with water. This work is combined with an audio piece in the upper gallery, which is specially produced for this exhibition, commenting on the time that a visitor spends in the exhibition space. Both works carry the hallmarks of Ceal Floyers'artistry: sparse and quite simple concepts with unmistakable poetic undertones. Welcome!
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