Kunsthalle Wien

A joint exhibition of Kunsthalle Wien and Wiener Festwochen

Assistant curator: Andrea Popelka
Curatorial coordination: Astrid Peterle

Laure Prouvost’s works stimulate the senses and imagination of those who see them. The great concerns of the present-day world are set to simmer in her humorous cosmos. By means of playful storytelling, she seeks paths forward. Over the last two decades, the artist (born 1978 in Croix, Northern France) has developed an inventive audio-visual vocabulary characterized by wit, a singular sensory quality and joyful play with misunderstanding and linguistic ambiguity.

After numerous international exhibitions, Ohmmm age Oma je ohomma mama is the first solo exhibition of the Turner Prize winner in Austria, jointly conceived by Kunsthalle Wien and Wiener Festwochen. It comprises a series of works created especially for this occasion – including her new film Here Her Heart Hovers – that form an expansive multi-media installation.

As the title suggests when spoken aloud, it is about the fine gesture of homage – to the oma, the nana, the grandmother. In her exploration of the very figure of the grandmother, Prouvost engages with the concept of origin and its possible interpretations, and in a broader sense with the construction of history and its transmission through generations. And so the exhibition begins in search of those who made us what we are able to be today. We encounter an audaciously invented genealogy of “grandmothers” ranging from intellectual role models and inspiring historical characters to people personally known to the artist or important in her immediate world.

Ohmmm age Oma je ohomma mama works like a tangled surreal dream where past, present and future dissolve into indistinction: stories, encounters and fleeting memories proliferate here, materializing in multiple bodies, voices and objects. Prouvost invites us to see ourselves bound together in an interconnected and fluid world. One that protects what the predecessors left, and with passing generations will watch over the forays of those who follow.

Each ticket to the Wiener Festwochen 2023 allows reduced admission to the exhibition for € 4.