FAÇADE: Laure Prouvost

KANAL-Centre Pompidou is a new museum of modern and contemporary art scheduled to open in Brussels in 2025. Currently under construction, the iconic glass front of the building is surrounded by scaffolding. Covered by industrial mesh, for the next 18 months the area will consecutively host three large-scale commissions by international artists. Laure Prouvost’s commission will be followed by contributions from Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven and Tarek Lahrissi. 

Laure Prouvost inaugurates the series called FAÇADE, creating a vibrant 1000-square-meter image that establishes a conversation with the surrounding urban space and its users. In her composition, flowers and plants emerge from the building, to form a post-apocalyptic garden. Among the teeming flora, voluptuous flesh and tentacles appear alongside flags bearing slogans addressed to the city. They inspire ideas, express wishes, and call for action. Typically for the artist, the slogans play with words and linguistic structures and combine different languages, also a common practise for the citizens of Brussels. Individual dreams find articulation in one multilingual voice. The scene represents the powers of nature, bodies, and words. It is an optimistic and hopeful image that attempts to redefine the public space and imagine a more compassionate future, where humans are in harmony with nature, and everyone is granted a voice.

Laure Prouvost lives and works in Molenbeek, Brussels. In 2019, she represented France at the 58th Venice Biennale. In 2013, she won the prestigious Turner Prize. She has had numerous solo exhibitions at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt, the Munich Art Centre, the New Museum in New York, and most recently the National Museum in Oslo. Her work can be found in the collections of the M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; De Pont Museum, Tilburg; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Lucerne Art Gallery; Arts Council of England, London. 

KANAL–Centre Pompidou is a new, interdisciplinary museum of modern and contemporary art in Brussels established by the Brussels Capital Region, and developed and managed by the KANAL Foundation in partnership with Centre Pompidou. Slated to open in 2025, it is situated in a converted Citroën factory at the Yser square. In the run up to the inauguration, since 2018, KANAL has been building an ambitious off-site programme and a collection of contemporary art. With its 40 000 m2 space KANAL promises to be one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in Europe.

The FAÇADE series is co-curated and co-produced by KANAL-Centre Pompidou and artlead.