Perrotin Seoul is pleased to present ANIMA, Laurent Grasso's second solo exhibition with the gallery in Korea. After Perrotin Seoul’s inaugural exhibition at Samcheong in 2016, the French artist comes back with a large selection of paintings, sculptures, and neon works as well as Anima (2022), a new film which had its world premiere in Paris in the fall of last year.
In the exhibition, Laurent Grasso explores the visible and the invisible, creating bridges beyond the boundaries between human and non-human. Avoiding the pitfalls of representation and anthropomorphism, through his paintings, film, and sculptures, he aims to fulfill our world with new hypotheses. Grasso’s work is inspired by scientific discoveries and human sciences, as well as by beliefs and mythologies attached to specific phenomena or places.
For this project, the artist is particularly interested in the spectacle behind the Mont Sainte-Odile, a place with a mysterious and telluric force, dominating the Plain of Alsace in France. This pilgrimage site is linked to the miracle of Saint Odile, and where perpetual adoration has been practiced since the end of the 19th century, is very close to a geoscientific survey point related to the study of the “Critical Zones” as described by Latour.
Exploring the thresholds between the material and the immaterial, the artist transposes the materiality of the bronze of the Panoptes sculpture into a neon gas emitting light. Evoking the flow that passes through plants during photosynthesis, the neon Panoptes (2022) reflects a state of consciousness diffusing itself in the materiality of the world, presenting a conceptual juxtaposition.
Next to the Panoptes (2022), another work echoes an imagery raised by the film: the sculpture Anima (2023) depicts a young boy holding a fox. Directly inspired by the appearance of the same animal in the eponymous film, this work is part of a series that explores the child’s connection to the sacred. Like a messenger or an oracle, the young boy gives the impression that he has access to something unique or holds the key to knowledge.
In the first-floor gallery, centered with The Helmet of Minerva (2023), a monumental onyx sculpture emanating a mysterious light, Grasso introduces a new series of paintings to complement his Studies into the Past that he began in 2009. This vast conceptual project incorporating elements from his film in paintings executed in the manner of the Renaissance masters focuses on the strange phenomena frequently rendered in his work such as clouds and flames. Grasso enjoys considering time as an artistic material, mixing temporalities, and developing projects around the concept of time travel.
The Future Herbarium series presents species of flowers, such as daisies, anemones, and other Asteraceae showing signs of mutation that could potentially occur in the near future. In this hypothetical world where the living would have taken new paths, the heart of the flowers has split, as though their DNA had undergone unusual modifications. The translucent materiality of his works refers to the imagery of the LIDAR scanners, which has the particularity of revealing realities invisible to the naked eye which we find in the film Anima (2022).
Consequently, through the film Anima (2022), the viewer is faced with a territory that borders between reality and dream, and the edges of an unidentified world. Surreal and ambiguous, yet not entirely out of the realm of possibility, Grasso’s installation intuitively blends the past, present and future inevitably forcing visitors to question what they thought they knew.
