Venice, Italy

Venice is overflowing with exhibitions right now with the Venice Biennale on view. There are major installations, ambitious group shows, national pavilions, and more art than anyone could possibly see in a single visit. And yet one of the exhibitions I most loved was among the quietest.

The presentation of Ceal Floyer at Palazzo Diedo is the first major exhibition of her work following her untimely death in December 2025. Floyer built an extraordinary practice from small gestures, subtle perceptual shifts, humor, and intellectual precision. Her work rarely announces itself. It asks you to pay closer attention. And then consider what you just noticed. That quality feels especially poignant now.

The exhibition is on view at Palazzo Diedo, the eighteenth-century Venetian palazzo that philanthropist, investor, and collector Nicolas Berggruen transformed into a space dedicated to contemporary art, opening to the public in 2024. The setting feels perfectly suited to Floyer’s work. Nothing is overstated. Everything depends on perception.

Ceal and I worked together on two solo museum exhibitions. The first was at the Berkeley Art Museum as part of the MATRIX Program in 2001, and the second was at the Aspen Art Museum in 2016.

What I always loved about Ceal was that her work was sly, subtle, silly, and profoundly intelligent all at once—just like the artist herself. She could transform an ordinary object, a sound, a projection, or a simple gesture into an experience that permanently altered how you understood the thing you thought you already knew.

Many artists ask us to look at something new. Ceal asked us to look again. Her work remains a reminder that attention itself is transformative. And that sometimes the smallest shift in perception can change everything.

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