The Cinematheque

“Pushes translation to extremes … Prouvost’s film language is a mischievous pick-and-mix of ironic art-speak, pop music, and make-believe.”

Nick Aikens, Frieze

“Comprising seven narrative sequences, The Wanderer is based on a script by artist Rory Macbeth who, without any knowledge of German, translated Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis into English. The film follows a number of characters who undergo a series of increasingly bizarre and mysterious experiences, navigating situations in which reality becomes increasingly uncertain. Working for the first time with a full crew and a cast of actors, multi-media artist Laure Prouvost uses Macbeth’s text as a loose framework rather than a definitive script, opening up the narrative to the shifts and slippages of language and direction introduced by the filmmaking process” (LUX). Prouvost was awarded the Turner Prize in 2013, and was the subject of a career-spanning retrospective at FIDMarseille last year.

“[Prouvost] plays with the polysemic nature of language—written, spoken, and cinematic—setting words and images in different contexts to bring out new or double meanings … Prouvost has suggested that as a French speaker living in London, she has become especially interested in these linguistic ​‘opportunities.’”

Amy Beste, Gallery TPW (Toronto)

“[Prouvost’s videos] make demands: you must concentrate, engage, exist. You must create your own system of viewing. You must respond to the work in all the different registers in which it constantly challenges you: visual, textual, audio.”

Orit Gat, The Art Newspaper