11042014 \\ 24052014
The outcome of a reflection and a production that Laure Prouvost began in late 2011, during an artist’s residency in Naples, and on subsequent visits, the exhibition’s central motif is Polpomotorino, the city of Naples’ sprawling and irreducible character.
During her stay, Laure Prouvost observed the city and its corporeality; by day and night she filmed the streets, the social dynamics, the rituals that take place here. She recorded the incessant and hectic rhythm of life, the deafening noise, the briny air of the sea and the unhealthy air of the alleys. She interpreted its artistic and historical tradition, its complex interweaving of decadence, nobility and violence.
The divergent sensations of this exploration flow into an exhibition that has the fragmentary structure, expressive tension and synaesthetic density of a poetic text. The center of Polpomotorino consists of a great sculpture created by assembling different parts of old scooters. It is distinguished by an ambiguous character, both monumental and playful: resembling an obelisk, it looks like a carousel, a cactus; it recalls certain fountains in the city’s squares. This sculpture is part of a large video installation that brings the street into the basement level of the Fondazione Morra Greco. The exhibition includes a number of smaller works and a large projection. Polpomotorino is characterized by strident tones and the harsh, metallic flavor of raspberries, vivid contrasts of light and shade, and shot through with a wild, sensuous energy. It stages an interplay of reflexes and mirrorings, blurs reality and fiction, remixes forms, assails, deafens and dazzles.
Laure Prouvost’s research is based on an attempt to overcome the limitations and specifics of language, and succeeds in articulating, in a non-linear narrative, complexly intertwined intangible and physical sensations. Her work explores the shifts between reality and fiction, the limits of communication, interpretation and meaning, the potential for misunderstanding and error. Her videos, characterized by a very rapid montage of images and sounds, interspersed with texts often directed at the viewer, are inserted into large installations in which the artist combines multiple languages – from sculpture to painting, drawing, collage and performances – in an attempt to grasp the physicality of reality and translate it into an equally complex artistic experience
All images Courtesy Fondazione Morra Greco, Napoli
© Amedeo Benestante