Walker Art Center Presents Laure Prouvost: They Are Waiting for You

Laure Prouvost, After After, 2011, installation view at Biennale de Lyon, 2013. Courtesy of the artist, carlier | gebauer, Natalie Obadia and Biennale de Lyon. Photo: Blaise Adilon

MINNEAPOLIS, September 5, 2017—The Walker Art Center will present a new installation by Laure Prouvost in the Medtronic Gallery from October 12, 2017 – February 11, 2018. In conjunction, Prouvost will create a theatrical performance work co-commissioned and co-produced by the Walker and The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center.

Prouvost produces absorbing moving image installations in which she conflates reality with fiction and art with everyday life. Often narrated in the artist’s voice, and interspersed with spoken and written instructions that directly address the viewer, her works confound expectations through a rapid-fire succession of moving images and sounds. Combining painting, sculpture, and found objects in a waiting room outside of the central moving image work, Prouvost draws us into a shifting terrain where we lose our grasp of words and meanings while the objects around us seem to gain theirs.

In conjunction with her new gallery installation, Prouvost will create a theatrical performance work that draws on similar thematic elements. Joining Prouvost on and offstage will be choreographer Pierre Droulers and artist Sam Belinfante.

Laure Prouvost’s They Are Waiting for You is curated by Victoria Sung with Gwyneth Shanks.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Laure Prouvost’s artistic output consistently returns to themes of escape into unfamiliar worlds or imaginings of unexpected alternative environments. A strong narrative impulse propels her practice, resulting in immersive, trans-medial installations with interwoven story lines that combine fiction and reality. Her videos, installations, paintings and tapestries unhinge commonplace and expected connections between language, image, and perception. Stepping away from traditional linear narratives, the artist crafts sensual environments laden with playful mistranslation that open a space for the viewer to grapple with the unstable relationship between imagination and reality.

Prouvost was born in 1978 in Croix-Lille, France. She lives and works in London, UK and Antwerp, Belgium. Recent solo exhibitions include Softer and rounder so as to shine through your smooth marble, SALT Galata, Istanbul (2017); the wet wet wanderer, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2017); Laure Prouvost, wot hit talk, Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdańsk (2017); AND SHE WILL SAY: HI HER, AILLEURS, TO HIGHER GROUNDS…, Kunstmuseum Luzern (2016); GDM-Grandad Visitor Center, Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2016); ALL BEHIND, WE’LL GO DEEPER, DEEP DOWN AND SHE WILL SAY:, MMK, Frankfurt (2016); DROPPED HERE AND THEN, TO LIVE, LEAVE IT ALL BEHIND, FRAC/ Consortium Dijon (2016); A Way To Leak, Lick, Leek, Fahrenheit, Los Angeles (2016); We Will Go Far, Musée Départemental d’Art Contemporain de Rochechouart (2015), It, Heat, Hit, e-flux, New York (2015), Der Öffentlichkeit — Von Den Freunden Haus Der Kunst, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2015), For Forgetting, New Museum, New York (2014). Provoust received the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2011 and the Turner Prize in 2013.

Tickets
Tickets for the show will be $15 ($12 Walker members). For more information, call the box office at 612.375.7600 or visit online at walkerart.org/tickets.

RELATED PROGRAMS

OPENING-DAY ARTIST TALK
October 12, 2017 at 6PM
Medtronic Gallery

Join artist Laure Prouvost and exhibition curator Victoria Sung for a conversation about Prouvost’s work and the development of They Are Waiting for You.

Laure Prouvost in collaboration with Sam Belinfante and Pierre Droulers: They Are Waiting for You
Friday & Saturday, February 9 & 10, 8 pm
McGuire Theater

“Prouvost’s work is messy, funny, and playful, but it is also always serious.” –Art Newspaper

For this world premiere, inquisitive French-born conceptual artist Prouvost presents her first major production for the stage. The winner of the 2013 Turner Prize, Prouvost is known for weaving together fiction and fact to create complex and humorous stories that challenge the ways we create our own life histories. Expect an unpredictable yet thoroughly charming experimental mash-up of video work, dance, immersive stage décor, and choral music. Prouvost is joined by renowned dance artist Pierre Droulers-one of Belgium and France’s leading choreographers-and a Minnesota-based choir.