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

Starting in September, the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst will present the Turner Prize winner Laure Prouvost (b. 1978) with her first comprehensive solo presentation in Germany.

Under the title “all behind, we’ll go deeper, deep down and she will say:”, the artist will create an environment transforming the entire MMK 3 exhibition space into a large-scale installation. In this setting, she will unite several of her filmic works of the past years with sculptural and painterly elements to create an overall narrative. Hybrids oscillating between technical apparatuses and human figures will serve as the installation’s main architectural structure.

The point of departure for the presentation is a story invented by the artist about her fictitious grandparents. The grandfather, a satire on the heroic artist figure, has dug a tunnel within the framework of an art project, disappeared inside it and never turned up again. The actual protagonist, however, is the grandmother, who – with the aid of relics of their shared past – tells of her own fantasies, hopes and dreams.

Prouvost creates a bizarre realm of the imagination that captivates the viewer on various sensory levels. The boundary between reality and fiction grows ever hazier. The artist’s concern is with penetration of unknown worlds, 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 at the end of June with the installation “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 dominated by parallel narrative threads. At the end of 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 also stands alone and offers its visitors a self-contained and independent exhibition experience.