Laure Prouvost

Working across video, drawing, tapestry, ceramics, photography, performance, and above all language, Laure Prouvost creates immersive installations that draw viewers into a state of both personal and collective introspection. Words, images, memories, the five senses—everything that appears tangible and reliable—is playfully unsettled by the fantastic, double-edged narratives she constructs. Witty and mischievous, her relationship to language is shaped by her own experience and by the gap between the English she speaks in everyday life and her native French. Through these constant shifts between languages, Prouvost explores broader questions of cultural history and what remains of it through displacement and across generations.

Through a body of work that is innovative, singular, and deeply organic, Laure Prouvost has developed a coherent and compelling narrative practice in which fantasy and humour are only part of a richer artistic vocabulary.

An archivist of images, objects, words, crafts, fictions, and documents, she scavenges the daily torrent of images and texts that surrounds us, isolating unexpected associations and combinations that nourish both her individual stories and the broader chronicle of her practice. Through a deliberately imprecise and irreverent approach to translation, an effortless engagement with notions of appearance, hypothesis, and ambiguity within entirely fabricated mythologies, and the persistent suggestion that drama, failure, or collapse is always possible, Laure Prouvost methodically constructs a body of work that is both substantial and essential. While she playfully embraces the effects of accidents and disruptions, the genuine possibility of an ideal world nevertheless emerges through the generosity that permeates her work, as well as through moments of exuberance and joy that never feel contrived.

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Holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, London (2002), and a Master of Fine Arts from Goldsmiths, University of London (2010), Laure Prouvost is one of the most acclaimed artists on the international contemporary art scene. She represented France at the 58th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2019.

In 2020, Prouvost participated in the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, NIRIN, curated by Brook Andrew. Her French Pavilion for the 58th Venice Biennale subsequently toured to Les Abattoirs in Toulouse and the LaM – Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art in Villeneuve d'Ascq. In 2021, she presented solo exhibitions at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, ACCA (Australian Centre for Contemporary Art) in Melbourne, and the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

She has held significant solo exhibitions at major international institutions, including M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp), AM-BIG-YOU-US LEGSICON (Belgium, 2019); Palais de Tokyo, RING SING AND DRINK FOR TRESPASSING (Paris, 2018); The Bass, They Are Waiting for You (Miami Beach, 2018); Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Para|Fiction, the wet wet wanderer (Rotterdam, 2017); SALT Galata, The Uses of Art: Final Exhibition (Istanbul, 2017); Walker Art Center, Laure Prouvost: They Are Waiting for You (Minneapolis, 2017); Le Consortium, Dropped here and then, to live, leave it all behind (Dijon, 2016); MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, ALL BEHIND, WE'LL GO DEEPER DEEP DOWN AND SHE WILL SAY (Frankfurt, 2016); Kunsthalle Lissabon, AND SHE WILL SAY: HI HER, AILLEUR, TO HIGHER GROUNDS… (Lisbon, 2016); Pirelli HangarBicocca, GDM–Grandad Visitor Center (Milan, 2016); Red Brick Art Museum (Beijing, 2016); Fahrenheit (Los Angeles, 2016); Musée départemental d'art contemporain de Rochechouart, We Will Go Far (2015); Haus der Kunst, We would be floating away from the dirty past (Munich, 2015); Rupert (Vilnius, 2015); New Museum, For Forgetting (New York, 2014); Extra City Kunsthal, From Wantee to Some Signs (Antwerp, 2014); Whitechapel Gallery (London, 2013); Collezione Maramotti (Reggio Emilia, 2013), Farfromwords; Fondazione Morra Greco (Naples, 2013), Polpomotorino; Tate Britain, Schwitters in Britain (London, 2013); the 13th Lyon Biennale (2013); Gallery TPW (Toronto, 2013); Contemporary Art Society (London, 2013); Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, The Wanderer (2013); Frieze Projects (London, 2011); and Tate Britain, Art Now Lightbox: Laure Prouvost: It, Heat, Hit (London, 2010).

Laure Prouvost was awarded the Turner Prize in 2013, the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2011, the Principal Prize at the 56th and 57th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 2010 and 2011, and the EAST International Award in 2009. In 2016, she was appointed Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite, followed in 2019 by the rank of Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Laure Prouvost has been represented by Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels, since 2014.