Artist Laure Prouvost's solo show at London's Whitechapel Gallery
At some point, while immersed in artist Laure Prouvost's new video installation at London's Whitechapel Gallery, you realise you are being watched. You turn around to find two smaller screens, each featuring a woman swaying languorously, eyes focused eerily on you, like a hippie Mona Lisa.
Provoust's 'Farfromwords' sneaks up on you that way. It seduces you with a big-screen ode to the Italian countryside - all rushing streams and sun-kissed rose petals - but keeps you in check with surreal elements that make you wonder if this garden of earthly delights is as it appears.
The London-based French artist was the winner of the fourth Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2011, offered in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery. The award came with a six-month residency in Italy, home of the fashion label. It was not, however, without strings attached. Prouvost returned this year with a show that displayed the fruits of her labours in rural Biella, near Milan: a mini-coliseum installed in Whitechapel's Gallery 1 that immerses the viewer in the landscape, palette and eccentric energy of rural Italy.
The circular structure is an allusion to classical Rome, plastered inside like a fresco with evocative elements. There are Roman pillars, olive trees, stone fountains and disembodied extremities (breasts and all) that recall marbles from the Borghese. This is where the smaller screens are displayed, with models who seem to stare in your direction, no matter where you wander.
On the main screen, a film called 'Swallow' cuts together spring-like images (fitting that the exhibit launched on the vernal equinox). There are feet steadying themselves on the river rocks, lips parting over soft ice cream, bathing nymphs - all to an audio track of constant breathing, like the earth coming to life after winter. Then it, too, gets surreal, with flashes of lips on a live goldfish and bare toes squishing raspberries.
The exhibit's full-length name is 'Farfromwords: car mirrors eat raspberries when swimming through the sun, to swallow sweet smells' and as part of the finale, guests exit past a series of mounted car mirrors upturned into platters for fresh raspberries for the taking. Savouring the tartness brings it all home.
Watch an extract from 'Swallow', 2013. Courtesy the artist and Mot International
ADDRESS
Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High Street
London
E1 7QX
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Based in London, Ellen Himelfarb travels widely for her reports on architecture and design. Her words appear in The Times, The Telegraph, The World of Interiors, and The Globe and Mail in her native Canada. She has worked with Wallpaper* since 2006.
-
A West Austin house invites you to commune with nature
Westview Residence by Alterstudio, a West Austin house among trees, makes the most of large windows and open-air decks in a verdant setting
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Zenith looks ahead with its LVMH Watch Week 2025 releases
Zenith launches two new releases at LVMH Watch Week which call on contemporary inspirations and trends
By Chris Hall Published
-
Design solutions for make-up organisation: a guide by Wallpaper’s beauty editor
This guide to make-up organisation by Wallpaper’s beauty editor includes storage solutions from B-Line, Kartell and Muji, plus essential tools like a Shu Uemura eyelash curler
By Hannah Tindle Published
-
Steve McQueen presents a portrait of protest in Britain
Turner Contemporary’s groundbreaking exhibition Resistance reframes the history of protest, reminding us of photography’s political potential
By Millen Brown-Ewens Published
-
When galleries become protest sites – a new exhibition explores the art of disruption
In a new exhibition at London's Auto Italia, Alex Margo Arden explores the recent spate of art attacks and the 'tricky' discourse they provoke
By Phin Jennings Published
-
'It's a metaphor for life': rising star and 'Queer' poster artist Jake Grewal on his new London exhibition
British artist Jake Grewal speaks to Simon Chilvers about 'Under the Same Sky' as it opens at Studio Voltaire in London
By Simon Chilvers Published
-
Wallpaper* Design Awards 2025: Tate Modern’s cultural shapeshifting takes the art prize
We sing the praises of Tate Modern for celebrating the artists that are drawn to other worlds – watch our video, where Wallpaper’s Hannah Silver gives the backstory
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Inside the distorted world of artist George Rouy
Frequently drawing comparisons with Francis Bacon, painter George Rouy is gaining peer points for his use of classic techniques to distort the human form
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘I'm endlessly fascinated by the nude’: Somaya Critchlow’s intimate and confident drawings are on show in London
‘Triple Threat’ at Maximillian William gallery in London is British artist Somaya Critchlow’s first show dedicated solely to drawing
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Surrealism as feminist resistance: artists against fascism in Leeds
‘The Traumatic Surreal’ at the Henry Moore Institute, unpacks the generational trauma left by Nazism for postwar women
By Katie Tobin Published
-
Looking forward to Tate Modern’s 25th anniversary party
From 9-12 May 2025, Tate Modern, one of London’s most adored art museums, will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a lively weekend of festivities
By Smilian Cibic Published