Artist Profile

Ceal Floyer

Portrait of Ceal Floyer

Ceal Floyer was born in 1968 and passed away in 2025.

 

Floyer completed her BFA at Goldsmiths College, London, in 1994. In 1997, she received the Phillip Morris scholarship by Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin.

 

The artist received numerous awards and grands, among them the 2009 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize awarded by Nam June Paik Center, Yongin; the 2007 Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst, awarded by Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; the 2005 Bremerhaven-Stipendium, awarded by Kunst & Nutzen, Bremerhaven, and the 2002 Paul Hamlyn Award of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, London.

 

Floyer’s work often uses everyday but generally overlooked objects or images to introduce defamiliarizing and somewhat startling moments into the spectator’s experience of a space. Slight alterations to found objects that are usually familiar from everyday experiences (a hairbrush, the sign for an emergency exit, or the projection of an image of a nail, for instance) create often surprising interventions that heighten the awareness of our surroundings.

 

The artist has exhibited extensively. Among her numerous solo exhibitions are: Til I Get it Right, Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2024); Ceal Floyer, Base / Progetti per l‘arte, Florence (2022); Ceal Floyer, goeben, Berlin (2021);  Unrequited Line, Y8 Kunstraum + Yoga, Hamburg (2020); Things, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Michigan (2019); Exercises in Harmony 3, Kunsthal 44Møen, Askeby (2019); Maximum Headroom, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2018); Ceal Floyer, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2016); On Occasion, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau (2016); Ceal Floyer, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn (2015); Four Floors, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2015); Til I Get It Right, Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka (2015); Ceal Floyer, Museion, Bolzano (2014); Ceal Floyer, Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven (2013); Ceal Floyer, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2013); Things, Project Arts Centre, Dublin (2011); Works on Paper, Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2011); Ceal Floyer, DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal (2011); Auto Focus, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Miami (2010); Show, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2009); Gakona, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2009); Ceal Floyer, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina, Naples (2008); Construction, Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld (2007); Til I Get it Right, Rochester Art Center, New York (2007); Ceal Floyer, Swiss Institute, New York (2006); Ceal Floyer, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2005); Peel, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main (2003); X-rummet, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (2002); Index, The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm (2000), and Ceal Floyer, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern (1999).

 

Selected group exhibitions include: Access Kafka, Jüdisches Museum, Berlin (2024); Archival Ramblings, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern (2023); Borders and Walls as Heterotopic Spaces, 4th International Istanbul Triennial, Istanbul (2022); Des corps, des écritures, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris (2022); Pas sommeil. La fête dans tous ses ètats, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, Rennes (2022); Under Construction: New Acquisitions for the Nationalgalerie’s Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2022); Smashing Into My Heart, The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2021); The Work and the Gesture, MELK, Oslo (2021); Anima, Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition, Taipei (2020); Thrill of Deception. From Ancient Art to Virtual Reality, Ludwig Forum Aachen, Aachen (2019); Theaters of Fiction, Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College, Clinton (2018); Could Be (An Arrow): A Reading of La Collección Jumex, Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2018); KNOCK KNOCK, Humour in Contemporary Art, South London Gallery, London (2018); Rehearsal, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2018); Stories of Almost Everyone, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); The Transported Man, Broad Art Museum, Lansing (2017); moving is in every direction, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2017); WAITING. Between Power and Possibility, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (2017); Arte Povera: Italian Influences, British Responses, Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London (2017); Mentales Gelb. Sonnenhöchststand, Kunstmuseum Bonn and Lenbachhaus München, Bonn and Munich (2017); What People Do For Money: Some Joint Ventures, Manifesta 11, Zurich (2016); Behind the Curtain. Concealment and Revelation since the Renaissance. From Titian to Christo, Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf (2016); L’image volée, Fondazione Prada, Milan (2016); Zehn Räume, drei Loggien und ein Saal, Sprengel Museum, Hannover (2015); More Konzeption: Conception Now, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen (2015); Visual Deception: Into the Future, Nagoya City Art Museum, Nagoya (2015); The Event Sculpture, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2014); The Part in the Story Where a Part Becomes a Part of Something Else, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2014); Infinite Jest, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2014); Des choses en moins, des choses en plus, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2014); Light Show, Hayward Gallery, London (2013); dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel (2012); Primer Acto, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2012); Explosion! Painting as Action, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2012); The Unseen, 4th Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou (2012); Open House, 3rd Singapore Biennial, Singapore (2011); Neugierig? Kunst des 21. Jahrhunderts aus privaten Sammlungen, Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn (2010); Triumphant Carrot: The Persistence of Still Life, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2010); Making Worlds, 53rd Venice Biennale, Venice (2009); The Quick and the Dead, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2009), and I repeat myself when under stress, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit (2009).

 

Her work can be found in major museum collections, among them Tate Modern, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main; Hamburger Bahnhof –Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin; Sammlung Zeitgenössische Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Berlin; Denver Art Museum, Denver, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Arts Council Collection, London; British Council, London; Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Kunsthalle Bern Collection, Bern; Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel; Musée d’Art Moderne der Paris, Paris; Museo Jumex, Mexico; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Tokyo; Towner Art Gallery, London; and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford.