Laure Prouvost

Laure Prouvost was born in Croix, an upscale suburb of Lille, France, and attended a local school with a strong arts focus. She studied film at Central Saint Martins and also attended Goldsmiths, University of London. After graduating from Saint Martins, she worked as an assistant to the artist John Latham, who she describes as “more like a grandfather than my real grandfather”. She has exhibited at Tate Britain and the Institute of Contemporary Arts. She was awarded the biennial MaxMara Art Prize for Women in 2011 in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery and her work has appeared in the private contemporary art collection Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Prouvost’s work combines installation, collage and film.
Prouvost was the principal prize winner at the 57th Oberhausen Film Festival In 2014, she staged her first solo museum exhibition in the United States at the New Museum, titled For Forgetting.
Prouvost won the 2013 Turner Prize winner for an installation named Wantee made in response to the artist Kurt Schwitters. In a tea party setting a film describes a fictional relationship between Prouvost’s grandfather and Schwitters. The work is named in reference to the habit of Schwitters’ partner of asking guests if they “want tea”. The panel described the work as “outstanding for its complex and courageous combination of images and objects in a deeply atmospheric environment”.