Laure Prouvost

For the latest exhibition in East Hampton, Lisson Gallery is pleased to present a selection of important works by Laure Prouvost. Featuring an array of mediums, including hand-woven tapestries, glass sculptures, furniture and works on paper, the artist’s third solo exhibition at the gallery includes pieces that highlight Prouvost’s humorous and idiosyncratic encounter with language.

Laure Prouvost’s practice concentrates on miscommunication and the precariousness of words and their meaning. The artist blends personal memories, with visual clues to create installations that obscure the line between fiction and verity. In the front window of the East Hampton gallery, viewable from outside, hangs Airplane teapot chandelier (2019). This suspended Murano glass work originates from the mythology of grandma. A common theme throughout Prouvost’s practice, in this work the artist refers to a recurring dream, in which grandma used to hang naked by a rope from the side of an airplane while in flight.

In many of her most iconic installations Prouvost welcomes the viewer to sit and enjoy some tea as her grandma would have offered. In Re-learning chair, 2020, the artist provides the viewer with a chair, upholstered in a tapestry of her own design which is both functional and steeped in narrative. The work recalls Prouvost’s series of chairs made from found paintings by her grandfather, a conceptual artist who was lost while digging a tunnel from the UK to Africa and memorialized in her film Wantee, for which she won the Turner Prize in 2013. Two major tapestries; Here we are floating in the future past (2020) and In Grand Ma’s Dream Grand Dad Would Not Loose His New Teeth Everywhere (2018) are included in the East Hampton presentation. Prouvost and her grandmother begin working on her tapestries before they are completed by experts in Flanders. In the 2018 work a gummy set of teeth float in air suspended among clouds. The title reveals convoluted layers of narrative as is typical of Laure’s works. Here, it is suggested that the tapestry is a documentation of Grandmother’s dream. The object remains elusive, however, and viewers are left to decipher what is true and what is fiction. Laure has said of her playful use of language and the organization of narrative in her work; “The moment of inventing and putting a dialogue into place with the audience becomes a work of exchange, a game becomes communicative; we need to position ourselves in relation to the story."

From the depth, musical tentacules (4th from the left) (2020) are glass musical instruments on view for the first time since the artist’s solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Lissabon in Portugal, Prouvost’s inaugural presentation in the country. The works build upon a range of themes explored within Prouvost’s project Deep See Blue Surrounding You for the French Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale – as well as a recent collaborative project at Toronto's Mercer Union, including miscommunication, the constant flow of water, and the ‘tentacular’, liquid nature of human experience.

The exhibition at East Hampton follows solo exhibitions at the gallery by Masaomi Yasunaga, Roy Colmer, Leon Polk Smith and Ceal Floyer. Lisson Gallery’s East Hampton space will continue its focused format featuring both influential, historical artworks and debuting new bodies of work in an experimental, intimate setting. Following the Laure Prouvost exhibition the gallery will offer a presentation by Sean Scully. The gallery is open to the public each Thursday through Saturday, from 11am to 6pm, Sundays from 12 – 5pm and Wednesdays by appointment.