Laure Prouvost – MoMo 8 Flags

8 Flags

Since 2021, the “8 Flags” programme has invited artists to design flags for the roof of the Villa Paloma. Following Shimabuku, Pierre Bismuth and Nick Mauss, the NMNM has assigned Laure Prouvost to invest the eight flagpoles of the villa between two exhibitions. The temporary closure of the museum is an opportunity for a project to reconnect to the outside world, an informal correspondence between two territories which, at first glance, everything opposes and which the artist wishes to relate with flags, then a choir and parades.   

MoMo

Monaco-Molenbeeck: addressing signs, waving flags in the wind, linking sensibilities. The artist Laure Prouvost stretches her arms between territories and leads us on a journey that intertwines languages, fluidifies bodies and relationships. Drawing its strength from the wind that motions the flags, from the sea that opens the horizon and from the songs that unite the trajectories, the MoMo project arises on the roof of the Villa Paloma before travelling to the streets of Molenbeeck. Breasts are a recurring motif, echoing maternity and the vitality of sensations. In a distanced treatment of the real body, here they are fragmented, reversed, stretched and stylised. The flags also invite us to let ourselves be carried by the poetry of the texts, to exchange glances, to take part in the children’s songs that we will soon hear; carry dreams and desires, all the signs that we like to address each other regardless of borders and distances.

Laure Prouvost lives and works in Molenbeeck. In 2014, the NMNM presented her installation Wantee during the exhibition “Portraits d’intérieurs” and in 2021, on the occasion of the exhibition “Tremblements”, Since he’s gone, weaved by Grand Ma, a tapestry-video that is part of the museum’s collections. In 2022, she proposed Habiter, nager, leviter, méduser, a discussion performed on the terrace of the Villa Paloma with Mathilde Roman. In her work, which interlaces narratives and challenges the viewer, she performs with her body and her voice and provokes feelings of intimacy and proximity that thwart real distances. In her narratives, languages are linked, form new meanings, and imaginary projects are inspired by the contexts of the exhibitions. Her addition of personal fictions slowly unfold over time enhancing the narration as a whole.