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T urner Prize-winner Laure Prouvost unfurls her first Texas solo at Rice University's Moody Center for the Arts this fall. The exhibition, enigmatically titled "Above Front Tears Nest in South" and curated by the Moody Center's Frauke V. Josenhans, could easily be at home in The Menil Collection alongside Dominique and John de Menil's Surrealist treasures. (It's no accident that the International Society for the Study of Surrealism's annual conference last month in Houston featured a reception and viewing amidst the Moody's Prouvost show.) Surrealist Laure Prouvost at Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University By Catherine D. Anspon. Photography Anthony Rathbun. Eco Feminist Takes Texas "Laure Prouvost: Above Front Tears Nest in South," installation view, 2023, Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University. Artworks courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery. The French-born, Brussels-based artist, who represented France at the 2019 Venice Biennale, is a surrealist for our times. She distills surrealism's tenets to forge a contemporary statement incorporating modern media: video, VR goggles, sound, and site-specific installations. The resulting show pairs the organic (leaves and feathers) with the manmade (allusions to oil spills littered with actual trash sourced from the Rice campus). Prouvost also employs the centuries- old art forms of hand-blown Murano glass and wool tapestries adorned with hand-sewn threads, fashioning them into a sprawling multi-room statement alternately intimate and heroic, dystopian and enchanting. What emerges is Prouvost's idiosyncratic voice, which casts Grandma in the role of a flying protagonist with avian qualities, a fitting feminist heroine who bungee-jumps from a plane and nests on cell phones to recharge them. Filtered through the vision of an eco feminist, this intuitive, beautiful, and occasionally disturbing exhibition is a gift for Texas audiences. "Laure Prouvost: Above Front Tears Nest in South," through December 14, at Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, moody.rice.edu. 66