Laure Prouvost: all behind, we’ll go deeper, deep down and she will say:

The MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main presents the Turner Prize winner Laure Prouvost (b. 1978) with her first comprehensive solo exhibition in Germany. Under the title all behind, we’ll go deeper, deep down and she will say:, the artist transforms the entire MMK 3 gallery space into an extensive environment. In this setting, she unites several filmic works of the past years with new productions combined with sculptural and painterly elements creating an overall narrative. Hybrids oscillating between technical apparatus and human figure as well as autonomous sculpture and functional structure serve as the installation architecture.

The point of departure for the presentation is the fictitious story of the artist’s grandparents. The grandfather, a satire on the heroic male artist figure, dug a tunnel within the framework of an art project, disappeared inside it and has never been seen ever since. Meanwhile, in the granddaughter’s account, the grandmother becomes the real protagonist who appropriates the artworks the grandfather has left behind, modifies them, and thus expresses her own artistic approach.

Prouvost’s video works are characterised by layered stories, surreal humour and wordplay. She continuously explores ideas of truth and fiction and investigates the interplay of image, sound, written and spoken text as a means of questioning conventions of perception. She creates a bizarre realm of imagination that captivates the viewer on various sensory levels. The artist’s concern is a penetration of unknown worlds, an escape from everyday life, and the conscious loss of the self in the hope of ultimately finding one’s way back to it again.

The exhibition at the MMK 3 is the second and central chapter of a three-part survey of the work of Laure Prouvost. It began in June 2016 as Dropped here and then, to live, leave it all behind, staged in a labyrinthine structure at Le Consortium, Dijon. In Frankfurt the story will glide into a timeless world of the unconscious dominated by parallel narrative threads. In October, at the Kunstmuseum Luzern, it will emerge again from darkness into light in a presentation entitled and she will say: hi her, ailleurs to higher grounds… Although the show’s three venues share a common theme, each stands alone and offers its visitors a self-contained and independent exhibition experience.

In collaboration with:

Le Consortium, Dijon
Dropped here and then, to live, leave it all behind
June 25–September 25, 2016

Kunstmuseum Luzern
and she will say: hi her, ailleurs to higher grounds…
October 29, 2016–February 12, 2017

Exhibition design: Diogo Passarinho
Catalogue: Bardhi Haliti

The exhibition is developed in close cooperation with the artist. It is made possible by the Jürgen Ponto-Stiftung, with support from the Institut Français.

Thanks to carlier | gebauer, Berlin, MOT International, Brussels / London and Nathalie Obadia, Paris