The French ministry of culture has announced that the Turner Prize-winning artist Laure Prouvost will represent France in the 2019 Venice Biennale.
The French minister of Europe and foreign affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian and culture minister Françoise Nyssen elected Prouvost after she was nominated by a selection committee. Her international career is “a reflection of the dynamism of the French art scene,” said a statement from the ministry of culture, which also lauded Prouvost’s ability to take on both intimate and universal subject matter in her work.
The French Institute is organizing the French pavilion at the 58th edition of the Venice Biennale, which runs May 11-November 24, 2019.
Hana Noorali, who has worked with Prouvost at Lisson Gallery since the artist joined their roster last year, says that the gallery is “delighted” by the selection. “It is a huge honor and one we know she will take in her stride,” Noorali told artnet News. “It’s been incredible to watch and be part of her career developing, and to witness the success of her recent exhibitions, including earlier this year at Lisson Gallery New York. We are very much looking forward to working closely and supporting her as she takes on this milestone in her career.”
Prouvost was born in Lille in 1978, though she studied in the UK and now lives and works in London, Antwerp, and out of a caravan in the Croatian desert. She is the third female artist to represent France on her own, following Annette Messager in 2005 and Sophie Calle in 2007. (The installation and performance artist Lili Reynaud-Dewar co-represented the country with Céleste Boursier-Mougenot in 2015.)
Prouvost’s videos, installations, paintings, and tapestries experiment with notions of language and translation. Her multidisciplinary practice is often driven by narrative as she proposes alternative visions of the world, intertwining contemporary realities with fictional landscapes. Before winning the Turner Prize in 2013, she earned the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2011.
Before her pavilion opens in Venice next year, Prouvost will take over Paris’s Palais de Tokyo, June 22-September 9, with a solo show titled “Ring, Sing and Drink for Trespassing.” She is currently the subject of a show of moving-image installations titled “Laure Prouvost: They Are Waiting For You,” which is on at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach until September 2, 2018.