Soleil Double. A device of 40 works made for the occasion. Grasso develops one of the founding concepts of his work: the real is twofold. Grasso transforms objects into subjects in an almost cinematic scenario.
“Miracle or Catastrophe?”
Conversation around the work of Laurent Grasso, with Jean-Hubert
Martin and Marc-Olivier Wahler, curators, art critics and art historians,
moderated by Ashok Adicéam, Galerie Perrotin.
Introduction by Emmanuel Perrotin
Galerie Perrotin, Paris is pleased to present a first solo show by
Laurent Grasso, featuring a device of forty works made specially for the occasion.
With “Soleil Double,” Grasso develops one of the founding concepts
of his work: the real is twofold. To see the truth, we must look for
its mysterious side. Drawing on his personal reading of Michel
Foucault, Grasso transforms objects into subjects in an almost cinematic
scenario. Each work functions as a block of reality identified in the collective
unconscious and is made strange by subtle alterations. The
confrontation of this common reality with deliberately staged
anachronisms creates a zone of instability were the mind can wander in time.
The encounter with these manipulated objects thus give rise to a feeling
of
general uncertainty, something almost magical.
In this new exhibition, bringing together different periods, places and familiar
registers, Laurent Grasso explores two fundamentals of our human condition:
our relation to time and power, especially the power of images.
With oil paintings on panels reminiscent of Flemish and Italian
primitives, neons with messages and paradoxical drawings,
display cases filled with real fragments of comets, ancient books
(including Galileo), Grasso disorients time, diffracts it, multiplies it, and
places us “devant le temps”
(
before time)* facing these precise, rare,
unprecedented images. The time of catastrophes, wars, false miracles - everything is put back into the orbit of methodical doubt with at the
centre of the script, these strange, off-track, “subjectified” figures that
are a double sun, portraits of prophets, crowds at Fatima waiting for an
appearance in a trance-like state, and an erupting volcanic island
filmed by a drone as if a weapon, or landscapes in which the skies are
streaked with the traces of comets.
“These comets that punctuate the
works, from Studies into the Past up to astronomical observations from
the Vatican, via Galileo, bring an end to the homogenous, linear time
associated with the West. These phenomena observable in different
parts of the planet open onto parallel histories of multiple modernities
experienced by globally interconnected peoples, or people that have yet to
come together.”*
Inspired by anthropologists such as Bruno Latour and the idea that
catastrophes represent the final threshold in regenerative revolutions, Grasso
sees his art as an instrument of research and knowledge.
The emotional impact from the bipolar zones engendered by each work
support his questions. How do we understand the world and its forces
through its representations? What devices underpin scientific, religious or
aesthetic power? Is the dominator not the person who sees best, studies
and owns the most advanced representation of reality? The artist leaves
us a choice: what is the meaning of the image of this bishop with a giant
astronomical telescope taken from the Vatican archives? What is the symbolic
input of these two suns in brushed brass that greet visitors to the exhibition?
Is this the iconography of a miracle or the sign of a catastrophe?
With these dialectical images, which are by essence troubled, even paranoid,
the artist is encouraging the receiver to try a new mental experiment. He
hybridizes both forms and spatio-temporal signs, as in his major show at Jeu
de Paume in 2012, when architecture, sound and silence were interwoven
to form a “cinematic epic.” ***
For his exhibition at Galerie Perrotin, Grasso has created a new apparatus
with several scripts, leaving visitors free to write their own imaginary drama,
to screw up their eyes and understand this
“Soleil Double” (Double Sun)..
On the occasion of the exhibition "Soleil Double" at Galerie Perrotin,
Paris, a catalogue will be published in December 2014 by Dilecta and
Galerie Perrotin.
And also, "Soleil Double" at Sean Kelly, New York from
September 13 to October 18, 2014.
Image: Soleil Double, Film 16mm en boucle / 16mm film, loop
Press Contacts:
Héloïse Le Carvennec, Head of Press & Communication +33 1 42169180 heloise@perrotin.com
Thomas Chabaud, Press Officer +33 1 76210711 thomaschabaud@perrotin.com
Opening reception: Saturday, September 6, 4-9pm
Galerie Perrotin
Salle de Bal, 60 rue de Turenne 75003 Paris
Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 7pm