Turner Prize 2013

Continuing on from the work of Turner Prize nominee David Shrigley, I will also reference Laure Prouvost who uses humour within her video installations.

A French artist, Pouvost was nominated for her new work Wantee (2013) shown at the "Schwitters in Britain" exhibition, Tate Britain, where she communicated her thoughts of everyday problems with language and association.

One example of humour being used as strategy in her work is Wantee. This video installation depicts Prouvost carrying around the camera in a "lived in" house, talking us through what she is seeing and how she is perceiving it, as if she is directly talking to us. In one section of this video she points the camera towards a painted window on a wall, and then to a real window, talking us through what is real and what isn't. 

This  quirky and humorous 'stating the obvious' comparison, uses the personal directions of the camera to create light hearted humour in considering the comedic value of language barriers. The title of this video installation can also be considered to be humorous as it can easily be mis-interpretated through pronounciation;  "Wantee" can be interpretated as "Want Tea?", another example of Prouvost-ian strategies highlighting the barrier of language.

Screenshot from Wantee, Laure Prouvost (2013)

In Swallow (2013), the video installation depicts various scenes - including a close up of a woman's mouth inhaling and exhaling, the picking and eating of strawberries and raspberries, and various shots of naked women and men walking around a lush environment, and, for example, wading through a lake. In one section of this video the camera is focused on a fish which appears to swim out of the water to a stone, which has raspberries on top, and then supposedly steals a raspberry and swims back into the water. While we focus on this clip we hear a seductive, female voiceover say "the bird stealing the raspberry". 

As Laure Prouvost says: ‘I think misunderstanding makes you use your imagination more'.(Tate Shots)

Overall when considering Prouvost's video installations, it is arguably  humour that helps us to interpret Prouvost's understanding of the world, in a light hearted, playful and often surprising manner.