Laure Prouvost: AM-BIG-YOU-US LEGSICON

AM-BIG-YOU-US LEGSICON is the first museum survey that considers the practice of artist Laure Prouvost. Offering a wide-angle panorama of Provoust’s work to date—ranging from a key selection of her formative video works through to recent major installations—the exhibition aims to portray the work of an artist developing complex thought through artistic languages.

This survey will delve into the philosophical depths of Prouvost’s work, considering the notion of the pre-verbal, as well as its incompatibility with the verbal. Presenting a substantial body of work, the exhibition seeks to emphasise the web of ideas the artist develops for considering the complex state of mental life. Her practice has deep resonance to some of the significant contributions of mid-20th century philosophy and psychoanalysis. This includes the work of pioneers in Object Relations Theory, such as psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, who considered core aspects of human intellectual and emotional development, as manifested through our relations to objects and the external world. Affinities can also be found with the philosophical writings of Simone de Beauvoir, particularly on the need to acknowledge our fundamental ‘ambiguity’ as humans as a way to find freedom. Prouvost’s work similarly seeks to locate primordial conditions of the human subject at the breakdown of meaning located between modernistic binaries of nature and culture, intuition and rationality.

Including several new works made by Prouvost for the exhibition, AM-BIG-YOU-US LEGSICON will be a total environment emphasising the experimental, layered and intuitive aspects of the artist’s practice. The largest exhibition of work by Prouvost to date, it will offer a key moment to reflect on the work of somebody considered one of the most original artists of her generation. Prouvost was recipient of the Max Mara Prize in 2012 and the Turner Prize in 2013. In 2019, she will represent France at the 58th Venice Biennale. Prouvost lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium.

Works by Prouvost are also presented at Antwerp’s renowned Café Strange for the duration of the exhibition.
Address: Café Strange, Dambruggestraat 161, 2060 Antwerp.
Open Tuesday-Sunday, 7pm-2am.

The exhibition is curated by Nav Haq, Senior Curator, M HKA.

Exhibition Architecture by Diogo Passarinho Studio.

The substantial publication Laure Prouvost: LEGSICON has been published to accompany the exhibition. Co-published by Book Works and M HKA.