Ceal Floyer looks to our everyday environment to call into question objects we may take for granted. Through her playful practice Floyer explores the purpose of objects, toying with their application and searching and subverting any slippage of language. At the entrance to the East Hampton gallery sits Welcome (2011). The ready-made welcome mat is installed at the doorway to the exhibition space, rotated 180°, welcoming the viewer out. Along the gallery wall is a tape measure, Nine Yards (2006). The tape, fixed to the wall, has been rolled until it measures exactly nine yards. Contouring the gallery, the tape measure is a literal manifestation of the American adage ‘the whole nine yards’.

On the main wall of the gallery hangs Ink on Paper (Set of 12) (1999). A mainstay in Floyer’s oeuvre, the 1999 felt tip pen on paperwork represents one of the first created by the artist. Ink on Paper works three ways: as the title of the series, as a description of the process of creation, and as an identification of its media. The artist rests a felt-tip pen at the centre of each sheet of blotting paper until all the ink has drained out. Hotel Rooms (2018), surveys the all-too-routine manner in which hotel room photographs are taken. The artist remarks there remain only two options: a bed on the left or a bed on the right. Floyer has organised a montage of promotional images of hotel rooms cut from contemporary travel brochures, mounted as a diptych on two Plexiglass panels. Rooms photographed from the right-hand angle are arranged on the right-hand side of the diptych, while rooms photographed from the left-hand angle are arranged on the left-hand side of the diptych. The work is activated by the viewer, who automatically re-stages the camera angle with his or her own perception of the rooms from the same perspective of the photographer. The action of looking from one panel to the other also nods to the activity of flipping through one of the brochures from which the images were culled.

The exhibition follows solo presentations by Ceal Floyer at the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the Aspen Art Museum. Lisson Gallery’s East Hampton space will continue its focused format featuring both influential, historical artworks and debuting new bodies of work in an experimental, intimate setting. Following the Ceal Floyer exhibition, the gallery will offer presentations by Laure Prouvost, Sean Scully and Allora & Calzadilla, among others. The gallery will be open to the public each Thursday through Saturday, from 11am to 6pm, Sundays from 12–5pm and Wednesdays by appointment.