03: Prouvost / Duke-Battersby / Nyst / Lizène

3 April, 2014 - 21:00
SPHINX

In her videos and installations, Laure Prouvost (FR, 1978) playfully manipulates connections between language, image and perception in order to subvert our notions of what is real and what is not. Prouvost’s unique approach employs quick cuts, montage, direct address, on-screen text and deliberate misuse of language. The result is seductive, immersive and often disorientating. In 2013, Prouvost was awarded the Turner Prize and the Max Mara Art Prize for Women and had solo exhibitions at Whitechapel Gallery and Collezione Maramotti. For her first screening at the Courtisane Festival, a selection of her work, including the Turner-award winning video 'Wantee', will be presented in dialogue with works by pioneer Belgian video artists Jacques-Louis Nyst and Jacques Lizène, and Canadian duo Emily Vey-Duke and Cooper Battersby.

Swallow

Laure Prouvost
,
UK, FR
,
2013
,
HD
,
12'

Inspired by the aesthetic and sensuous pleasures of Italy, Prouvost plays on the historic idea of visiting the Mediterranean for inspiration.

The Fine Arts

Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby
,
CA
,
2002
,
video
,
4'

Vey Duke and Battersby mock their own lack of inspiration: a woman confesses that she’s speaking French in the nude because she has no good ideas, but then admits that her solution is unoriginal. “I hate the fine arts, I am disgusted by the fine arts, because, um, the fine arts are always made with artifice.”

Monolog

Laure Prouvost
,
UK, FR
,
2009
,
video
,
12'

Prouvost parodies her own role as a director, and our role as an audience, as she draws attention to the screening space itself. “Come inside, I’m going to explain a few things. Just about you and the space we’re in. It’s quite warm in here, you should take off your jacket ...”

Tentative à contraindre le corps à s’inscrire dans le cadre de l’image

Jacques Lizène
,
BE
,
1971
,
Super 8
,
5'

The self-declared Liège ‘artist of mediocrity’ has produced and reproduced his work since 1965, continuously underlining self-irony, failure, and the absurd. On this occasion, Lizène’s challenge is to oblige the body to fit into the frame, whilst the camera gradually moves closer and closer.

L’objet

Jacques-Louis Nyst
,
BE
,
1974
,
video
,
11'

The discovery of a child’s toy: a small blue metallic teapot, presents a complete enigma to an archaeologist of the future. The scientist, who no longer has information on 20th century civilizations at his disposal, patiently attempts to unveil the significance of the object. 

Wantee

Laure Prouvost
,
UK, FR
,
2013
,
HD
,
14'

Wantee was originally conceived as part of Prouvost’s installation for the exhibition ‘Schwitters in Britain’. The work’s title is inspired by the nickname of the Dada artist’s companion Edith Thomas, due to her habit of asking ‘want tea?’. The protagonist here, however, is Prouvost’s fictional grandfather, who is described as a conceptual artist and a close friend of Kurt Schwitters.