Laure Prouvost
‘Oui Move In You’
ACCA, 2024
Curated by Max Delany and Annika Kristensen
Most are unaware of the skill that Australian glassblowers have, completing the ACCA commission allowed the team to prove their competence on the International stage.
Laure’s birds pushed our collective glassblowing experience of more than 150 years. We hope the success of this commission gives other international artists the confidence to employ a strong team of Australian glassblowers to make complicated and challenging glasswork in Australia.
We received one watercolour drawing for each bird, this was all the sketched information we had to work with. Further dialogue and conversations were had after lengthy prototyping sessions and colour sample stages.
Laure was a brilliant artist to work with, understanding the making process she gave us a generous scope to interpret her birds from the watercolour drawing to molten glass.
To execute the scale and complexity of Laure’s birds the team travelled to Canberra Glassworks where the facilities allowed us to hire two glory holes, two benches, at the same time as well as employ the skills of Tom Rowney, Ben Edols, and Hugo Curtis, making up the team of 7.
After prototyping in Melbourne, multiple discussions were had with gaffer Tom Rowney to determine the best approach and methodologies to employ. From this knowledgeable perspective the team embarked on making the five complex birds.
The excursion was deemed incredibly successful and we returned back to Melbourne with the birds mostly cold worked. In our Melbourne studio we fine tuned the connections of heads to the bodies, attached the bronze legs and finessed the posture.
Birds blown by Ruth Allen, Nick Doran Adams, Juniper Maffescioni, Keely Varmalis, Hugo Curtis, Tom Rowney and Ben Edols.
This commission was part of ACCA’s continuum of their International series of solo exhibitions by influential artists on the international stage, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art is pleased to present Oui Move In You, a major solo exhibition by French artist Laure Prouvost.
Acknowledging the radical, experimental and pathfinding figures who came before her, ‘Oui Move In You’ conceptually explores the roles and legacies of grandmother and grandfather, the maternal relations of mother and child, and contemporary social spaces in which humans commune with the natural world.
Oui Move In You is composed as a celebration of liberation and imagination, the sensual and sensuous, being and belonging, care and connection. Leading audiences on a journey from the subterranean realm of the underground and the subconscious towards a final joyous act of skywards levitation, the exhibition opens with the formative work Wantee 2013, for which the artist was awarded the Turner Prize. From there we are led into the marvellous, speculative world of Gathering Ho Ma, The glaneuse 2023, set around a campfire, to contemplate hovering celestial glass objects created in honour of artistic and intellectual precursors.
The bodily and earthly realm, exploring sensuality, desire and the fecundity of nature, is the subject of works including Four for sea beauties 2022, Swallow 2013 and Into all that is here 2015. Finally, as we emerge from a suspended forest, into the expansive video and sculptural installation Every Sunday Grandma 2023, the exhibition culminates with a release into the sky and the heavenly plains of weight and weightlessness, lightness and gravity.
As an extension to the exhibition, ACCA published a limited-edition artist’s book, H Oma Je, with contributions from Laure Prouvost alongside almost one-hundred fellow artists, friends and collaborators, paying homage to grandmothers, artistic matriarchs, inspirational elders, ancestors and forebears.
Laure Prouvost
Tune in to hear the artist speak about her major solo exhibition ‘Oui Move In You’ as she takes audiences on a journey throughout the ACCA gallery spaces and shares insights into new and existing works.
This video is produced by Gatherer Media.