The New Museum, located in the heart of Manhattan, will exhibit, for the first time in the United States, the work of the multidisciplinary French artist Laure Prouvost, from February 12 to April13. Despite its title—For Forgetting—the latest video installation by the winner of the 2013 Turner Prize will surely leave an imprint in the viewer´s memory. Prouvost brings to New York an immersive installation. Laure Prouvost: For Forgetting (2014), which combines visual art with high impact videos.
Both in her films and her installations, Prouvost alters the expected connections between language, image and perception. She moves away from traditional story lines and reveals the unstable relationship between imagination and reality, provocatively opening a space for the public to participate with surrealist ideas loaded with meaning.
In her films, the artist frequently addresses the audience directly; manipulating their senses through sequences of dizzying images, direct texts and a powerful sound, she delivers a broad physical experience. Among Prouvost’s most distinguished works are The Artist (2010), Far From Words (2013) and Wantee (2013).
In For Forgetting, the artist immerses us in a semicircular wall collage, a multichannel video installation and environments that intertwine elements of sculpture, painting and drawing. The show focuses on the problems and the possibilities of memory and oblivion and addresses the arbitrary distinctions that can be attributed to power and possession. With this work, she invites us to reflect on the different interpretations of any story, depending on the way we perceived or remembered it.
Born in 1978 in Lille, France, Laure Prouvost lives and works in London. Her work has been exhibited in major galleries such as Tate Britain, London’s Whitechapel Gallery, the CCA in Glasgow, Portikus in Frankfurt and the National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow. She has also shown her work at international film festivals, including the International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen, Germany, where she received several awards. In 2013, Prouvost received the Turner Prize for her piece Wantee and the Max Mara Art Prize for Women. ■
