M HKA, Antwerp
16 September 2022 - 08 January 2023
Laure Prouvost
Laure Prouvost has developed a highly idiosyncratic and humorously philosophical practice, typically using video, sound, installation, painting, tapestry and performance. Fundamentally, her work addresses the question of how we can seek, and give form to, human subjectivity and those pre-verbal things that cannot easily be articulated but are fundamental to our sense of self. With video in particular as the core of her work, Prouvost has become known for her immersive, mixed-media installations that explore language in the broadest sense, playfully bringing together elements such as the pre-verbal, the body, dreams, misunderstandings, symbolism, nature, family and biography. Prouvost is at the vanguard of artistic practices today that seek to strip away the established order of meaning, with a practice operating at the breakdown of meaning between the modernistic binaries of nature and culture, intuition and rationality.
Prouvost originates from Lille in Northern France, a stone’s throw from the border with Belgium. After a key period in London, where she won the Turner Prize in 2013, she moved to Antwerp almost a decade ago and established herself as part of the local scene. Her first major museum survey exhibition, AM-BIG-YOU-US LEGSICON, was held at M HKA in 2019, for which the museum acquired her key installation Before Before (2011). Prouvost represented France at the 58th Venice Biennale in the same year.
> Laure Prouvost, Before Before, 2011. Installation, mixed medium installation and video (01:18:55), Variable dimensions.
> Laure Prouvost, Behind the lobby doors, the pepper is in the right eye, 2016. Installation, tapestry, yarn, plant, sign (oil on wood panel), floor lamp, 290 x 545 cm.
> Laure Prouvost, Preparatory Drawing for M HKA, 2018. Drawing, watercolour on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm.
> Laure Prouvost, Ideally here this wall would surround you gently, 2021. Painting, oil, collage and varnish on board, 30 x 40 x 2 cm.