Prune Nourry
The artist
Born in 1985 in Paris, Prune Nourry lives and works in New York. She is interested in the fields of science and anthropology, particularly bioethical questions relating to gender selection and the artificial evolution of humankind. She explores these issues with an artistic approach that combines sculpture, installations, performances and video. Over the last few years, the artist has gained recognition for her long-term projects, such as the Terracotta Daughters army, inspired by the Xi’an terracotta warriors. The piece travelled the world between 2013 and 2015, from Paris to China and taking in Zurich, New York and Mexico City.
Exhibitions
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Vénus
January 11 - March 1, 2025
Paris - Grenier Saint Lazare -
Infinite Arrows
September 8 - October 22, 2022
Brussels -
Projet Phenix
September 4 - October 23, 2021
Paris - Beaubourg -
Catharsis
September 7 - October 19, 2019
Paris - Grenier Saint Lazare -
Contemporary Archeology
January 12 - March 4, 2017
Brussels
Biography
| Birth | Born in 1985 in Paris, France |
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| Residency | Lives and works between New York and Paris |
| Education | 2006 École Boulle, Paris, France |
SOLO EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
| 2025 | Galerie Templon, Paris, France Projet Phenix, Fondation Bullukian, Lyon, France |
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| 2023 | Ligne de vie, musée de La Poste, Paris, France Fauteuil d’artiste #11, La Scala – Paris, Paris, France |
| 2022 | Mater Earth, permanent installation, Château La Coste, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, France Statues Also Breathe, Art Twenty One, Lagos, Nigeria Infinite Arrows, TEMPLON, Brussels, Belgium L’Amazone Érogène (Arc), displayed in Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium’s hall, Brussels, Belgium Atys, Cour d’honneur, Assemblée nationale, Paris, France Atys, Opéra-ballet, Opéra royal de Versailles, Paris, France Atys, Grand foyers, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland Atys, Opéra-ballet, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland |
| 2021 | Projet Phenix, Galerie Templon, Paris, France Amazone Erogène, Le Bon Marché – Rive Gauche, Paris, France |
| 2019 | Catharsis Galerie Templon, Paris, France Daughters, Château de Malromé, Saint-André-du-Bois, France |
| 2018 | The Amazon, Standard Plaza Hotel, New York, USA La destruction n’est pas une fin en soi, Les Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles, Les Magasins Électriques, Arles, France |
| 2017 | Holy, Carte Blanche à Prune Nourry, musée Guimet, Paris, France Contemporary Archeology, Galerie Daniel Templon, Brussels, Belgium |
Voir plus
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
| 2024 | Atys, Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, France Faire corps, Fondation Villa Datris, Paris, France Breasts, Palazzo Franchetti, Venice, Italy |
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| 2023 | Dsoérdre, H Gallery, Paris, France L'Hôtel particulier de Monsieur H, Galerie Mouvements Modernes, Paris, France Just Phriends - Joopiter, Perrotin Matignon, Paris, France Métro ! Le Grand Paris en mouvement, Cité de l’Architechture et du Patrimoine, Paris, France Sculpture Garden, Biennale, Crans-Montana, Switzerland Temporality_Capturing the transience of the present moment, MOT (Module of Temporality) – Traveling exhibition ; Dnipro ; Kiev ; Kyiv Ukraine Strand for Women, FIAF et Masha Amini, New York, USA De leur temps (7), Un regard sur des collections privées, Frac Grand Large, Dunkerque, France |
| 2022 | Nafas, The Invisible Dog Art Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA Mater Earth, permanent installation, Château La Coste, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, France Mettre au monde, Centre d’art contemporain de l’ar[T]senal, Dreux, France Glasstress 2022 curated by Adriano Berengo and Dimitri Ozerkov, Fondazione Berengo Art Space, Venice, Italy Her way to say it, The Invisible Collection, London, UK |
| 2019 | Glasstress 2019, 6th edition, curated by Vik Muniz and Koen Vanmechelen, Fondazione Berengo Art Space, Venice, Italy Bêtes de Scène, Fondation Villa Datris, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, France |
| 2018 | Vis-à-vis, Galerie Magda Danysz – Paris, Paris, France Collection David H. Brolliet, Geneva, Switzerland 40 ans de passion, Collection David H. Brolliet, Fondation Fernet-Branca, Saint Louis, France |
| 2017 | Hidden Art, Simon Studer Art, Geneva, Switzerland |
| 2016 | Anima, The Invisible Dog Art Center, New York, NY, USA |
Voir plus
NOMINATIONS
| 2018 | Nomination to the Order of Commander of Arts and Letters, Ministry of Culture and Communication, France |
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CONFERENCES AND LECTURES
| 2022 | The world is ours, Serendipity film screening and conference, Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, Paris, France Duel #2, Serendipity film screening and conference; moderators: Tatyana Franck and François Asermet, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland |
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| 2019 | The First Annual TIME 100 Health Summit, world leaders and prominent figures in health care discussing essential perspectives on health and wellness, New York City, USA Metrograph Theater, Introduction of Agnes Varda’s film “Cleo from 5 to 7” by Prune Nourry, New York City, USA |
| 2018 | A conversation with Taryn Simon and Prune Nourry, Park Avenue Armory Talk, Luncheon Series, New York City, USA Fubiz Talk, Le rendez-vous de la créativité, Salle Pleyel, Paris, France |
| 2016 | Mapping Memory, Keynote Address, CUNY University The Graduate Center, New York City, USA Preparing Tomorrow Today – designing a museum for the future, with Tatyana Franck (Director of the musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne), Aurora Museum, Shanghai, China |
| 2014 | Visiting Artist Lecture, Suny New Platz, New York City, USA Art et Société: L’imaginaire peut-il influer sur la réalité?, (Art and Society: can imagination change the reality?), with Sophie Makariou (Director of Musée Guimet), Christophe Guilmoto (Sociologist) and Magda Danysz (Gallerist), Paris, France Terracotta Daughters, Discussion with Chien Chung (Didi) Pei, Chair of the Board of Trustees of China Institute, Alliance Française - Institut Français, New York, USA |
| 2010 | Holy Daughters - Sex Selective Abortions in India, with the sociologist Ravinder Kaur, moderated by Alka Pande, art adviser and curator, India Habitat Center, New Delhi, India The Emergence of Contemporary Indian Art, moderated by Christine Ithurbide, researcher in contemporary art, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France |
| 2009 | Interview-conference, moderated by Malvika Maheshwari, Professor, Science Po, Paris, France Conference, moderated by Sonia Brunel, speaker of National Museums, auditorium of the Louvre, Paris, France |
Voir plus
PROJECTS
| 2024 | Atys, Domaine de Chaumont sur Loire, France Works commissioned by the Cheval Blanc Hotel, Seychelles |
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| 2023 | Timbre d’artiste, édité par La Poste, France |
| 2022 | Creation of a stamp, edited by La Poste, French postal services Set of baroque opéra-ballet Atys, Grand Théatre de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland; Opéra Royale de Versailles, Versailles, France |
| 2020 | Serendipity, Special projection series, UNAFF/Stanford, Denver Women Film Festival, Health Museum Houston, TX, United States |
| 2018 | Serendipity, film directed by Prune Nourry, written and produced by Alastair Siddons, edited by Paul Carlin, executive producers : Angelina Jolie, Sol Guy, Darren Aronofsky, presented at the MoMA DOC Fortnight Festival, New York, USA; at the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale 2019), Berlin, Germany; at the Tribeca Film Festival 2019, New York, USA; |
PERFORMANCES
| 2018 | The Amazon, installation and performance, Hudson River and Standard Plaza Hotel, New York, USA |
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| 2013 | Genesis, solo show and performance, Casino Venier, Venice, Italy Le Dîner procréatif, solo exhibition and performance, Flux Laboratory, Geneva, Switzerland |
| 2014 | The Archeological dinner, Installation and performance, in collaboration with Jean-François Piège, Le Centquatre, Paris, France |
| 2011 | Holy River, happening, Calcutta Arts Club, Calcutta, India Spermbar, installation and performance, 5th Avenue commissioned by L’Institut français Alliance Française (FIAF) during the Crossing the Line Festival, New York, USA |
| 2010 | Holy Daughters, happening, New Delhi, India |
| 2009 | Le Dîner procréatif, installation and performance, Espace R, Geneva, Switzerland |
| 2008 | Les Bébés domestiques, happening, Tokyo, Japan Adoption Day #2, happening, Galerie Elaine Levy, Brussels, Belgium |
Voir plus
Press Release
Independent - novembre 2026
Are the statues of missing chikbok girls still breathing
Financial Times - October, 2022
Prune Nourry is super-sizing her sculptures
Forbes - août 2022
Find Out How This French Artist Transformed Her Ilness Into Art
Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle
Le Monde - février 2022
Atys de Lully, histoire d'une métamorphose au Grand Théâtre de Genève
Marie-Aude Roux
Libération - novembre 2021
Prune Nourry, la touche à tout
Wallpaper - septembre 2021
Prune Nourry's sculptures are to be touched, but not seen
Numéro - septembre 2021
Visitez une exposition invisible avec Prune Nourry
France Inter - septembre 2021
Projet Phenix
Madame Figaro - septembre 2021
L'art de toucher juste
Le Figaro - janvier 2021
Prune Nourry, une amazone qui tire ses flèches au bon marché
Valérie Duponchelle
Madame Figaro - novembre 2020
Prune Nourry
Transfuge.fr - septembre 2019
Prune Nourry, mythe et maladie
Madame Figaro - août 2019
Prune Nourry : corps et âme
LeMonde.fr - août 2017
Art of Glass
Women & Hollywood - février 2019
Berlinale 2019 Women Directors : Meet Prune Nourry - "Serendipity"
Laura Berger
Arts Libre (La Libre Belgique) - février 2017
Les archéologies actuelles de Prune Nourry
Roger Pierre Turine
Beaux Arts Magazine - février 2017
Les étranges mythologies sociales et futuristes de Prune Nourry
Judicaël Lavrador
News
Prune Nourry
SOLO SHOW – STATUES ALSO BREATHE
Art Twenty One, Lagos
Through February 4, 2023
A collaborative exhibition “Statues Also Breathe” just opened at Art Twenty One in Lagos, Nigeria, unveiling a major project honoring the Chibok girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram from their high school in Northern Nigeria in 2014 — many of whom are still missing. The project comprises 108 portraits in clay, modeled after the missing girls imaged in the style of iconic ancestral Ife heads.
Prune Nourry
INSTALLATION – NUIT BLANCHE
French National Assembly, Paris
On October 1, 2022
On the occasion of the Nuit Blanche, October 1, 2022, the work Atys #1 by Prune Nourry will be visible in the Cour d’honneur of the Palais-Bourbon of the French National Assembly, from 8pm to 1:30am. Free entrance without registration at 126 rue de l’Université, 75007 Paris.
Prune Nourry
INSTALLATION – L’AMAZONE éROGèNE
Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Belgium
From October 14, 2022 to February 12, 2023
From October onwards, the Great Hall of the Royal Museums will host a monumental work by the multidisciplinary artist Prune Nourry, a rising figure in international contemporary art. L’Amazone érogène, shown for the first time at the Bon Marché rive gauche Paris in 2021, is a work directly linked to her personal fight against breast cancer and is inspired by the mythological figure of the Amazons.
Prune Nourry
GROUP SHOW – METTRE AU MONDE
Prune Nourry - Mettre au Monde
L’Artsenal, Dreux
From June 23 to January 8, 2023
“Mettre au monde” questions the complex interaction between creation, begetting, public and private spheres, intimacy and extimacy while questioning the tenuous balance between these worlds in the life of an artist, parent, active and independent evolving notably in the field of visual arts still too little structured in the social support of its actors. The exhibition “Mettre au monde” (Bringing into the world) was created by the curators Amélie Adamo and Lucile Hitier. It supports a selection of artists who have – at some point in their lives – dedicated their work to their family, their child, to the inhabited body, to the nurturing body or to the artistic practice of four hands.
Prune Nourry
L’AMAZONE ÉROGÈNE – SOLO SHOW
From January 9 to February 21, 2021
Le Bon Marché , 24 rue de Sèvres, 75007 Paris
In January and February 2021, Prune Nourry invests the vast spaces of the Bon Marché Rive Gauche with a set of works created specifically for this carte blanche and thought in relation to the unique architecture of the place. The installation L’Amazone Érogène extends the Catharsis series in which the figure of the Amazon appeared by allowing the artist to experiment an unprecedented scale, thanks in particular to the vast volumes offered by the department store.
Prune Nourry
SERENDIPITY, A DOCUMENTARY FILM BY PRUNE NOURRY, SOON IN CINEMAS
PRUNE NOURRYOctober – November 2019, Serendipity - Documentary
Prune Nourry’s documentary film Serendipity will soon be in cinemas in France and the United States. Serendipity, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, was also presented at MoMa Doc Fortnight, at TriBeca Film Festival and ArtBasel – Film Section 2019. The film has received the support of notable women who have faced severe diseases, including Angelina Jolie who acts as Executive Producer. Serendipity is about random coincidences that started to coalesce in Prune Nourry’s art and life. While Prune Nourry has spent her entire working life exploring issues around the human body, she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 31. She turns then her medical odyssey into an epic artistic adventure.
Prune Nourry
DAUGHTERS – SOLO SHOW
CHÂTEAU MALROMÉ, SAINT-ANDRÉ-DU-BOIS, FRANCE, FRANCE From 29/06/2019 to 10/11/2019
Château Malromé is pleased to welcome in its walls, during this summer 2019, about twenty works of Prune Nourry previously exhibited from Spring to Autumn 2017 at the Guimet Museum (Paris). In this series of works, Prune Nourry has seized upon a problem particular to Indian and Chinese societies, the disappearance of a whole age-class of little girls caused by the use of prenatal predictive medical techniques in favor of boys. These sculptures, in a new scenography of Benjamin Gabrié, find new echoes in Malromé, family home of Toulouse-Lautrec. Curator : Richard Leydier
Prune Nourry
BêTES DE SCèNE – GROUP SHOW
FONDATION VILLA DATRIS, ISLE SUR LA SORGUE, FRANCE From 31/05/2019 to 03/11/2019
For its ninth exhibition, the Villa Datris Foundation questions through contemporary sculpture, the relationship between humans and animals. With seriousness, humor or derision, the works presented reveal sensitive images of animals. The exhibition also celebrates their beauty, the fluidity of their bodies or the extravagance of their feathers. 78 artists and 110 works will be exhibited in the villa and its gardens.
