Metaphysical Maze: Laurent Grasso at Frederic Church’s Olana and the Thomas Cole Site is a joint exhibition of works by acclaimed French conceptual artist Laurent Grasso (b. 1972, France) taking place at Olana, the home and designed landscape of Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), and the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, the historic home and studios of Thomas Cole (1801-1848).
The joint exhibition accompanies Grasso’s largest ever solo exhibition to date in the United States at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, Metaphysical Maze.
At Olana, Grasso’s installation will be centered on an immersive presentation of the artist’s 2023 film Orchid Island within the context of the Dining Room / Picture Gallery of Olana’s Main House. Elsewhere, new paintings from Grasso’s ongoing series Studies into the Past will be hung alongside artworks by Frederic Church, “infiltrating” the visitor’s sense of the historical past.
Grasso’s Studies into the Past series has drawn direct inspiration from 19th-century American artists of the Hudson River School, particularly Frederic Church. Church’s fascination with Prussian explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, whose seminal work Cosmos articulated the interconnectedness of science, the natural world, and spiritual concerns, is echoed in Grasso’s contemporary conceptual works exploring the links between the sciences and artistic exploration.