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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Tacita Dean

Tacita Dean on witnessing Ceal Floyer’s final work of art: ‘She gave death the middle finger’

Ceal Floyer at an exhibition of her work at the Lisson Gallery Milan in 2014.
Ceal Floyer at an exhibition of her work at the Lisson Gallery Milan in 2014. Photograph: Daniele Venturelli/Getty Images

It is very hard to describe a work by the British conceptual artist Ceal Floyer because description overburdens it. Her practice was so finely wrought that it existed only in the experience between a work’s idea and its absorption. Ceal handled this equation deftly and with perfect poise, but it was a perilous and naked process with little or no place to hide, or none.

Resolving the relationship between an idea’s inception and its manifestation became increasingly fraught for her and many works never made it to fruition. Therein lay her courage. This is why I wanted to add something to last month’s obituary of her by Jonathan Watkins.

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