Laure Prouvost
We Will Go Far
26 June – 26 October 2015
Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart
Place du Château
87600 Rochechouart
France
Hours: Wednesday–Monday 10am–12:30pm and 1:30–6pm
T + 33 (0)5 55 03 77 77
contact.musee [at] haute-vienne.fr
Image: Laure Prouvost, Project for The Smoking Image, 2015. Tapestry, video, motorcycles, smoke machines, earth, carpets, eggs, cellphones. Courtesy of MOT International (London, Brussels) and Galerie Nathalie Obadia (Paris, Brussels). Photo: Rochechouart Museum of Contemporary Art.
Rochechouart Museum of Contemporary Art is delighted to present Laure Prouvost: We Will Go Far (On ira loin), her first solo exhibition in a French museum. Winner of the prestigious Turner Prize in 2013, Laure Prouvost (b. 1978, lives between Vilnius and Tokyo) structures her work as independent story strands that weave and intersect from piece to piece. Her artistic output constantly returns to the narrative potential of objects, sound and cinematic tropes. Her immersive and carefully staged environments and videos explore the boundaries between fantasy and reality, leaving room to imagine new meanings within humorous mistakes and mistranslations.
These selected works underscore elements characteristic of her work since the mysterious disappearance of her grandfather, a conceptual artist who attempted to dig a tunnel from his living room all the way to North Africa. Laure Prouvost’s most emblematic works can be seen here: Wantee (2013), set in her grandparents’ living room; Visitor Center (2014), a sort of museum where visitors find themselves unintentionally paying their respects to the memory of her fictive grandfather; and The Smoking Image (2015), a new commission made especially for Rochechouart Castle, inspired by her current interest in escapism and adolescence.
Her starting point has also often involved invented characters or aspects of geographical locations she has personally experienced (the USA in How to Make Money Religiously; Naples and its swarms of motorcycles in Polpomotorino; Rochechouart in The Smoking Image). The Smoking Image centers on teenagers living in the countryside experiencing their first amorous adventures—dreaming of escaping and striking out on their own—and for whom a scooter provides the path to freedom and independence. Visitors traverse the teenagers’ world as they move through the castle roof gallery, finally reaching a “motorcycle-tapestry” which serves as a screen for the projection of the film shot in Rochechouart. The unpredictable imagery, fragments of texts and sounds disrupt expectations and trigger new sensations.
This exhibition We Will Go Far, and especially The Smoking Image, presents a new chapter in Prouvost’s investigation into the fuzziness of identity, communication between individuals, the over-abundance of images and the desire to leave space for the imagination. Parallel to this exhibition, Laure Prouvost is working on another show on the closely related theme of escape, adolescence and cars at the Fahrenheit Foundation in Los Angeles (January 2016).
Life in a Castle. Works from the Collection.
February 28–December 15
Artworks from Rochechouart Museum’s contemporary collections have been selected for this exhibition on the theme of living spaces. Recent acquisitions as well as earlier pieces contribute to reflecting on alternative ways in which art can inhabit Rochechouart castle. Spread over two floors, the exhibits re-appraise and subvert conventional visions of stately home interiors divided into function rooms, painting galleries, living rooms, music rooms, libraries or even crystal theater and cages.
The exhibition includes works by Adam Adach, Jules de Balincourt, Eduardo Basualdo, Tony Cragg, Pierre Dorion, Bernard Frize, Folkert De Jong, Arnaud Maguet, Alessandro Mendini, Kent Monkman, Katie Paterson, Pascal Pinaud, Sigmar Polke, Fiona Rae, Gerhard Richter, Tobias Rehberger, Thomas Schütte, Jana Sterbak, Patrick Tosani, Christophe Vigouroux.
Invited artists: Christian Falsnaes and Elodie Lesourd
February 28–September 20
Danish artist Christian Falsnaes (b. 1980) is known for performances in which he tests visitors’ conceptions of stereotypes. At Rochechouart Museum, he re-enacted with an unprepared audience one of his participative and feminist performances called Opening. The resulting video and artwork are shown throughout the exhibition. Falsanes was nominated for the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2015.
French artist Élodie Lesourd (b. 1978) tries to freeze in her paintings visions of other artists’ ephemeral installations related to music, a phenomenon she calls hyperrockalism. Several of her hyperrealist paintings will be on view, extending the life of contemporary artists’ short-lived installations which normally only continue to exist in photographs, archives and memories.
Raoul Hausmann
Objects, Objectives
February 28–December 15
Rochechouart Museum of Contemporary Art holds an extensive collection of over 700 works and personal archives by artist Raoul Hausmann (1886–1971), one of the founders of the Dada movement in Berlin. The present exhibition presents artworks (collage, photography, porcelain’s drawings, advertising…) that illustrate how Hausmann used the representation of objects as a test bed for renewal in his art and general outlook on life.
