Ceal Floyer gets it right at MOCA

A two-minute review plus a dinner party idea

Ceal Floyer’s sound installation “‘Til I Get it Right,” nestled within the MOCA Toronto staircase, is haunting and moving. Haunting and moving are two criminally overused adjectives in art reviews, but in this case, they’re fitting. It’s haunting because the rasping audio repeats in my head like an echo long after I’ve left the premises. It’s moving because it’s likely to move you to tears as you stand, unmoving, listening to the piece like a meditation.

The piece originally was shown at dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012. You can watch it below. I love how people look around, their eyes searching for art to look at. At MOCA, the setting is much more intimate and, in my opinion, effective. The staircase expresses a sense of transit and movement, of connection. While a staircase achieves these things literally, Floyer’s sound piece does it metaphorically with equal effectiveness.

The piece itself is painfully simple. Floyer uses a clip of Tammy Wynette's song Til I Get It Right from 1972—editing it to remove the words “falling in love” from the lyrics “So I’ll just keep on falling in love ’til I get it right.” and plays it on a loop. The exclusion of “falling in love” from the sentence allows the listener to project their own thoughts, fears, and meaning on the sentence, hence how it becomes a haunting meditation. As I listen, I think of all the things I keep trying and failing and trying and falling and…ad nauseam.

Here’s an art tip that may verge on copyright infringement (proceed at your own risk): you can play the audio on a loop in a small room in your house or apartment—a broom closet? Bathroom?—close your eyes and get a sense of the gravity of the piece. Even better, have it playing somewhere when you host a dinner party to imbue some art and conversation to the night.

A SoundCloud excerpt that you can loop here:

If you’re in Toronto, you can experience the piece until February 23rd, 2025, at MOCA Toronto.