Laurent Grasso
Studies into the Past
the work is accompanied by a signed certificate of authenticity
oil on wood
14 x 19 11/16 x 2 3/16 inches (35.5 x 50 x 5.5 cm)
(LG-P.24.4197)
Sean Kelly is delighted to announce Artificialis, Laurent Grasso’s sixth solo exhibition with the gallery. Grasso’s oeuvre blurs the line between temporalities, combining historical references and futuristic anticipations to create new, ambiguous, realities. The exhibition features the US premiere of Grasso’s films, ARTIFICIALIS and Orchid Island, along with two groups of new paintings related to each film. One of the series draws inspiration from the prominent 19th century American artist Frederic Edwin Church’s evocative landscape paintings of the Hudson River Valley. The exhibition confronts the rapid changes and existential challenges of our world where human cultural impact on nature is now indelible; it places viewers in a realm where distinguishing between the real and the artificial is questioned.
The film ARTIFICIALIS originated from an invitation from the Musée d’Orsay, in Paris, France, asking Grasso to produce a large-scale work in response to the museum’s exhibition centered around Darwin’s legacy and the perception of nature. Both exhibitions were on view at the museum simultaneously in 2021, creating a dialogue between the historical and contemporary perspectives on exploration and our understanding of the natural world. Grasso’s film examines how 21st-century explorers document the world using modern tools, merging real and virtual worlds to envision a post-Anthropocene future. Produced with advanced vision instruments like LIDAR scanners and hyperspectral cameras, ARTIFICIALIS generates images that blur reality, nature, and artifice. The film challenges the possibility of exploration in a hyperconnected world, mapped by satellites and compressed in space and time, questioning traditional notions of exoticism. Described by Grasso as a “film-machine,” it evolves like a code, drawing information from the world as a database to spotlight areas where nature has mutated due to human impact. Musician Warren Ellis composed the soundtrack while watching the film in real-time, adding a dynamic layer to the film, while graphic creations by M/M lend a futuristic dimension.
The Studies into the Past series is a vast conceptual project Grasso has developed throughout his career that explores anachronistic motifs. Iconic references from historical eras are mixed with strange, celestial phenomena such as eclipses, meteorites, clouds, and spheres. This blend of past, present and future aims to produce a sense of confusion in the viewer, as well as a false historical memory. Reproducing phenomena seen in Grasso’s film ARTIFICIALIS, such as flaming torches and Northern Lights, these new paintings from his Studies into the Past series are inspired by the prominent 19th century American artist Frederic Edwin Church’s evocative landscape paintings of the Hudson River Valley.
"Artificialis is the name of this hybrid, post-Anthropocene territory in which reference points have totally dissolved.” - Laurent Grasso
Frederic Edwin Church was significantly influenced by the Prussian explorer and scientist Alexander von Humboldt, whose seminal work Cosmos articulated the interconnectedness of science, the natural world, and spiritual concerns. Humboldt’s dedication to landscape painting and his belief in the artist’s role in scientifically portraying nature, deeply impacted Church. This historical context aligns with Grasso’s interest in the sciences and his artistic exploration. By introducing a discordant element such as a large black rectangle into these idyllic landscapes, Grasso disrupts the traditional perception of nature. Without delivering a direct message, he invites the viewer to engage in a space for projection and reflection on our current fears. Grasso’s new Studies into the Past paintings also continue his long-established exploration of time travel and the viewer’s perception of reality.
"I really like the idea of putting works from a certain period in front of other works that are much more futuristic, and thus having opposition between different temporalities." - Laurent Grasso
Orchid Island, 2023, examines the idealization of nature in art history juxtaposed with contemporary climate issues. Set against Taiwan’s seemingly pristine landscapes, the film introduces a mysterious, levitating black rectangle, which casts its shadow on the area over which it flies. The film questions Western representations of exotic, imaginary settings, oscillating between archive footage and futuristic projections. With this work Grasso seeks to “activate an altered state of consciousness similar to that of hypnosis.” The music, composed by Nicolas Godin, blends an ethereal melody with the subtle pulse of a synthesizer, casting a surreal and otherworldly tone over the film.
Part of Grasso’s process involves creating films that serve as the basis for other art forms, such as paintings and sculptures, resulting in a cohesive yet multifaceted oeuvre. New works from his Future Herbarium series, paintings of double-headed flowers, draw upon imagery from ARTIFICIALIS which are reproduced in oil and palladium leaf on wood. The mutations are transformations from a future that exists only in the artist’s imagination, creating “a sense of strangeness where beauty and anxiety intertwine,” states Grasso.
"Today the world is “derealizing” itself, detaching itself from reality. I have tried to capture moments when we no longer know where we stand, between the artificial and the natural." - Laurent Grasso
Echoing the film ARTIFICIALIS, this LIDAR scan features the ghostly image of a mutant flower in all its fragility. The flower’s elusive beauty, and the virtual navigation around it, offer a vision of the future that transcends the dichotomy between natural and artificial to depict the inherent beauty of this strange hybrid object.
"There is not necessarily a documentarian determination to focus on a site and its history, but rather to show a collage that evokes the question of exploration as it could be envisaged today." - Laurent Grasso
This neon light installation is a reference to the naturally occurring phenomenon observed in various parts of the world when natural gas seeps out from the depths of the Earth it ignites and burns forever, creating fields of eternal flames.
"We are in a post-Anthropocene era, where everything is connected, and it’s difficult to understand what is completely natural and what has been transformed by humans." - Laurent Grasso
The strangeness of celestial phenomena is a major theme throughout Laurent Grasso’s oeuvre. The cloud motif, explored in his films including Orchid Island, is geometrized to the extreme here. These copper and stainless-steel clouds, simplified into a pictogram, depicts an abstract presence which allows us to see more than something peculiar. With their sharp edges and reflective polished surfaces, they are also mirrors through which we can project future events.
Foreword by Laurence Des Cars, Text by Denise Markonish and Arnauld Pierre
Known for installations exploring science, natural phenomena, and contemporary mythologies, French artist Laurent Grasso presents a visual journey of his avant-garde, conceptual work.
Drawing on the visual possibilities of electromagnetic energy, radio waves, and natural phenomena, French conceptual artist Laurent Grasso explores their effect on our perception via immersive videos, sculptures, paintings, and drawings that resort to images or techniques borrowed from cinema or art history. At the crossroads of heterogeneous temporalities, geographies, and realities, his installations play with shifting viewpoints, boundaries between fiction and reality, and unusual perspectives.
This tome explores the artist’s manipulations of what we perceive to be time’s consistency, showcasing artworks merging a wide range of interests, including scientific speculations and fictions; natural catastrophes; and representations of power and authority. This questioning of time appears in Grasso’s Studies into the Past paintings, created using historically accurate techniques, which reconstruct our perception of the reality of another era to create a “false historical memory.” Vibrant photographs display his unique pieces, while astute observations from some of the world’s foremost art critics offer insight into Grasso’s approach.
Published 2024, Rizzoli Electa
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Installation view of Laurent Grasso: Artificialis at Sean Kelly, New York, October 25 – December 21, 2024, Photography: Adam Reich, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
