Laure Prouvost: Deep See Blue Surrounding You / Vois ce Bleu Profond Te Fondre

Les Abattoirs is delighted to be hosting the first stop of the French Pavilion tour created by Laure Prouvost for the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019: Deep See Blue Surrounding You/Vois ce Bleu Profond Te Fondre.

The cornerstone of Laure Prouvost’s artistic project for the French Pavilion is a fictional film. It takes the form of an initiatory journey, a joyous saga filmed over the course of a road trip through France—from the Parisian suburbs to the North of France, and from Postman Cheval’s Ideal Palace to the Mediterranean Sea—and finally to Venice. This film, full of conversation and idioms, is based on a script co-written by the artist and other contributors, in French and English with passages in Italian, Arab, and Dutch. 

The dialogues are performed by a dozen characters of different ages and backgrounds whose specific performance skills include magic, dance, and music. 

An in-situ sculptural installation, adapted to Les Abattoirs’sexhibition spaces, enriches and develops the themes of the film. 

The strength of Laure Prouvost’s work lies in its way of considering universal and current issues, expressing them in previously unseen artistic forms. The process of this work begins with a reflection on the concept of generations and identities. This is followed by the idea of disconnection, incomprehension, and difference, in particular through the exploration of language and its appropriation or even misappropriation. And finally, tinged with utopianism and surrealism, Laure Prouvost’s project seeks to bring to life a kind of journey of evasion, one that is both tangible and imaginary, towards an ideal elsewhere. 

Laure Prouvost was born in Croix-Lille (France) in 1978, before establishing herself in London, where she studied at Central Saint Martins, and then at Goldsmiths College. The winner of the 2013 Turner Prize, she currently lives and works between London, Antwerp, and a caravan in the Croatian desert.

From July to September, the LaM will present the second and final stop of this innovative tour. 

Also at Les Abattoirs:
Peter Saul: Pop, Funk, Bad Painting and More—September 20, 2019-January 26, 2020
Carolee Schneemann, Precarious & Books, publications, texts, documents—September 19, 2019-January 25, 2020
Viva Gino! A Lifetime of Art. Gino Di Maggio’s Art Collection at Les Abattoirs—February 28-Auguguat 23, 2020

The French Pavilion was produced by the Institut français, in close partnership with the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry for Culture, curated by Martha Kirszenbaum, exhibited from May 8 to November 24, 2019.