As part of the exhibition The Origins of the World. The Invention of Nature in the 19th Century, French artist Laurent Grasso has been invited by the Musée d'Orsay to produce a large-scale work: ARTIFICIALIS.
This new film, shown on a monumental LED screen at the back of the museum's nave, questions the notion of exploration through new tools, capable of revealing an invisible world, to which we had no access until now.
It presents an ambiguous, spectral territory, undergoing mutation, where reality and virtuality are superimposed on one another, and where our reference points can no longer be discerned.
“The idea of artificiality has been in my work for a very long time. I’ve always tried to give a virtual form to the world, through aerial views, through color changes. 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. ARTIFICIALIS is the name of this hybrid, post-Anthropocene territory, in which reference points have totally dissolved.”
(Laurent Grasso)