Introduction
Esther Schipper is pleased to present Ceal Floyer in her third solo exhibition with the gallery. The show comprises eight works in an arrangement specifically adapted by the artist to the space’s quirky angular geography.
Ceal Floyer’s ostensibly minimalist works challenge conventional notions of the mundane in everyday life. For this exhibition she takes often seemingly familiar objects, adding or subtracting certain features, and thus setting up a new conceptual space for them. In the process the works also acquire an extraordinary sensual appeal that inspires the visitor to reframe his or her notions of perception.
On entering you literally stumble across what looks like a raised foot mat on an existing one. It has the word Welcome printed on it, facing inwards. Are you coming or leaving? How welcoming is the act, if you have to be careful not to trip? You’re comforted by the rush matting’s earthy colour, yet it is rough to the touch.
On the facing wall left, you glimpse a photograph of an upside down drinking glass. The stark realism of the depiction appears almost three-dimensional, evoking memories of the sound of glass clinking, liquid being poured, something hollow. The vision dissolves into two dimensionality as you approach, and it becomes almost monochrome, fusing with the wall surface. Only the shininess of the print raises it apart.
Ahead, a huge expanse of quadro-angularly arranged holes—and an enamelled sign in red lettering on white—DO NOT REMOVE. Have the indentations been left over from signs that were removed in an act of defiance? Or a mathematical riddle, perhaps?
Two objects follow: an aluminium step ladder and a pile of sheet paper. The ladder has all its middle rungs removed. Where would it lead, were you able to get on it or descend? You’re seduced by the matt silver finish and the careful smoothing of the edges of the gaps left be the rungs. There is an object attraction, yet you’re repulsed from its use.
Page 8680 of 8680 evokes connotations of a print works, perhaps a heap of forgotten notes, information. Your curiosity draws you close, and all you read is digits, an indication of how many pages might make up this sculpture. Or is it?
You proceed towards the windows overlooking the waterway outside. A prismatic viewer from an entrance door has been inserted into one of the panes. It proffers an expanded wide-angle aspect of an excerpt from the scenery outside. Objects fade into the distance in order to appear whole.
We return and enter a grand imposing room with a stuccoed ceiling, an almost hallowed space. In hushed deference we face Diptych (Pending), a large white expanse of paper with an evolving tear (or fold) down its centre. The title makes you snigger, and expectant. The study for a primed canvas? Will it eventually come apart completely?
On the opposite wall: an equally eerie installation of a row of loudspeakers eliciting the engaged sound of a busy telephone line. Line Busy forms a starkly attractive blotch on a brilliant white surface, and a painful sound space tracing its interlocutors, some missing apparatus.
All the works share an involvement with something missing, to be filled in, a yearning, a riddle, a challenge.