Drinking One Another Fountain

Since ancient times, flowing water has symbolised abundance – and therefore wealth and power. Those who allow water to flow freely are demonstrating that there is plenty of it. This was true of Rome, Versailles and every city with an imposing fountain on its square. Often, statues of gods or river nymphs appear to set the water in motion. Twentieth-century artists used the fountain to mock the rules for what constitutes art, like Duchamp did with Fountain (1917), a porcelain urinoir that is a fountain in title only. With the circus-like chaos of their Stravinsky Fountain (Paris, 1983), Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely seemed to be mocking the tradition of the monumental public fountain.

Prouvost positions the fountain as an artwork as well, beginning in 2017 with a soaking-wet underwater bar, drenched in squid ink and studded with vodka fountains. Later, she began to create works based on the female body, such as a cluster of glass breasts suspended over a basin filled with goldfish (2018) and a large breast fountain (2018) that refers to fertility, maternal care and the power of nature. In 2019, she used everyday found objects and hand-blown Murano glass to construct a fountain in the shape of an octopus-like creature with breasts. The clash of materials and meanings is intentional, with skilfully hand-blown glass side by side with cheap water pumps, plastic tubing and litter.

Her fountain in De Pont Museum’s collection features two fish-headed creatures standing across from one another and spitting water into each other's mouth. De Pont acquired the work along with the video Every Sunday, Grand Ma, both of which were presented in Prouvost’s exhibition IN THE MIST OF IT ALL, ABOVE FRONT TEARS (2024). Rather than spouting upward, the water flows in a smooth arc from one fish to the other in a perpetual cycle of spouting and ingesting: Drinking One Another. Nothing is added, and nothing drains away. What one figure gives, the other must return. And as a result, abundance becomes dependency. The fountain can be interpreted as a closed system in which species are completely dependent on one another for survival.