アントワープを拠点に活動するフランス人アーティスト、ロール・プルーヴォ（Laure Prouvost）の作品集。2016年10月から2017年4月にミラノの美術館「ピレリ・ハンガービコッカ（Pirelli HangarBicocca）」で開催された、作者にとってイタリアでの初の大規模個展に伴い刊行された。この展覧会は、作者が祖父母へ捧げたオマージュであり、本書のタイトルはインスタレーション、映像、プロジェクション、彫刻やファウンド・オブジェクトを網羅した展覧会より引用。シュールであり、規格外の構造から作り出した幻想的な宇宙、または迷宮として着想されている。本書は、その空間に鑑賞者並びに読者を没入させることを目的に構成されている。流動的な層を構成することでデザインされ、不規則な流れによって直線的な内容の展開に逆らっている。本作は、物語や建物の構築・試みを中心とした内容となっており、歴史とフィクション、知識と意味のないように見えるものとの区別を壊すことが目的とされている。

「プルーヴォの作品群は、当初から疑う余地のないものと思われているものの意味を問い続けてきました。暗示的、明示的に繰り返して投げかけてくる疑問が、『もしも？』なのです。もしも、全てが違う方向に進んでいたら？そして、もしも見えているものが思っているものと違っていたら？鑑賞者は馴染みのある、日常を連想させるような環境に遭遇する。しかし、ここにあるオブジェ群は奇妙な感じが漂う。そこでは、絵画がお盆になり、植物は寂しさを語り、旅行会社は架空の場所への旅行を提供する・・・。」―アンナ・ゲッツ（Anna Goetz）

The catalogue of the eponymous exhibition by Laure Prouvost at Pirelli HangarBicocca: a multimedia project—installations, videos and projections, sculptures and found objects—revolving around the story of Prouvost's “grandfather”, a fictional prolific conceptual artist.

Published in 2019, GDM – Grand Dad's Visitor Center is an homage to Laure Prouvost's grandparents and takes its title from the artist's first major solo exhibition in Italy, a Gesamtkunstwerk that brings together installations, videos and projections, sculptures and found objects. As the show held in 2017 at Pirelli HangarBicocca was conceived as a dreamlike universe, a labyrinthine all-compassing installation made of surreal and irregular architectures, the book aims to place the visitor/reader at the center of an immersive setting. Designed on a series of shifting layers, which challenge the linearity of contents with an apparently irregular flow, GDM – Grand Dad's Visitor Center revolves around the endeavor or construction—of stories, of buildings—aiming to erode the distinction between history and fiction, knowledge and (seeming) nonsense.

“Since her beginnings, Prouvost's work has been invested in questioning the meaning of things presumed unquestionable. The recurring question, explicitly or implicitly posed, has continuously been what if? What if everything had gone differently? And what if what you see is not what you think it is? One encounters environments that feel familiar, reminiscent of everyday life. But here, the condition of objects […] often appear peculiar. Paintings become serving trays, plants proclaim to feel lonely, travel agencies offer trips to imaginary places […].”—Anna Goetz
Published following the eponymous exhibition at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, from October 19, 2016, to April 9, 2017.

Laure Prouvost was born in Justelieu (France) in 1961, before moving to London, where she studied at Central Saint Martin's College, then Goldsmith College. She now lives between London, Antwerp and a caravan in the Croatian desert.
Her work adopts the form of independent stories that intersect and answer to each other, in which fiction mixes with reality. These situations become immersive installations, inviting escapism, in a dialogue between films, sculptures, paintings, tapestries, performances or fragmentary tales, sometimes addressed directly at visitors. Generous and full of humour, her work examines the relationships between language, image and perception, placing the visitors in situations of doubt and incomprehension, but also a wonder which is both intellectual and sensorial.
The winner of the Max Mara Art Prize in 2011 and of the Turner Prize in 2013, appointed to represent France at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, Laure Prouvost has had numerous solo exhibitions around the world, in particular recently: Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, 2017), Pirelli Hangar Bicocca (Milan, 2016), Fahrenheit (Los Angeles, 2016) or Haus der Kunst (Munich, 2015); but also in France at the Consortium (Dijon, 2016) and the Musée de Rochechouart (2015). Among the recent group shows she has taken part in, mention can be made of the 13th Baltic Triennial (Vilnius, 2018), “Speak” at the Serpentine Gallery (London, 2017), “Practising habits of the day” at the ICA (Singapore, 2016) or “Hybridize or Disappear” at the National Museum of Contemporary Art - Museu do Chiado (Lisbon, 2015).