Laurent Grasso (born 1972) is a French

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

ist living and working in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

Biography

Laurent Grasso is the recipient of the esteemed Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture and the prestigious

Marcel Duchamp Prize The Marcel Duchamp Prize (in French : ''Prix Marcel Duchamp'') is an annual award given to a young artist by the Association pour la Diffusion Internationale de l'Art Français (ADIAF). The winner receives €35,000 personally and up to €30,000 ...

in 2015, and 2008 respectively. Currently based in Paris, he has held residencies at the

Villa Medici The Villa Medici () is a Mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome, Italy. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de' Medici, ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

and ISCP, New York. In 2015, Grasso was solicited by the French National Archives to create a film on the

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

of power and its agents. The resulting work ‘Élysée’, set in the French Presidential office’s Salon Doré to the soundtrack created by

Nicolas Godin Nicolas Godin (born 25 December 1969) is a French musician best known for being half of the music duo Air. Early life Godin was born in Paris, Île-de-France, France, and studied architecture at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture ...

, debuted in Edouard Malingue Gallery,

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

in March 2016. Since then it has since been broadcast in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

on numerous occasions, including the Nuit européenne des musées 2016. Grasso’s work has been exhibited worldwide, notably at the

Jeu de Paume ''Jeu de paume'' (, ; originally spelled ; ), nowadays known as real tennis, (US) court tennis or (in France) ''courte paume'', is a ball-and-court game that originated in France. It was an indoor precursor of tennis played without racquets, a ...

, Paris;

MASS MoCa The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ar ...

, North Adams; Centre Pompidou-Metz, amongst others, and is held in

collections Collection or Collections may refer to: * Cash collection, the function of an accounts receivable department * Collection (church), money donated by the congregation during a church service * Collection agency, agency to collect cash * Collection ...

such as the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

, Paris;

Mori Art Museum The is a contemporary art museum founded by the real estate developer Minoru Mori (1934–2012) in the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower in the Roppongi Hills complex both of which he built in Tokyo, Japan. The exterior architect of the museum's ga ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

and Leeum Samsung Museum,

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 of ...

. It has also been featured in multiple publications including ‘Architecture Now’ (Taschen).

Work

Laurent Grasso’s practice engages deeply with science, history,

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

and supernatural phenomena to weave a research-filled narrative. Tending on the epistemological, Grasso works across different disciplines from film and installation to painting and neon. Major public installations include ‘Nomiya’ (2009–2011), a transportable restaurant sat on the roof of the

Palais de Tokyo The Palais de Tokyo (''Tokyo Palace'') is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, facing the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern wing of the building belongs to ...

in Paris; ‘Anechoic Pavilion’ (2012), an installation presented by Edouard Malingue Gallery atop Central Ferry Pier 4 in Hong Kong. ‘SolarWind’, a permanent light installation in Paris commissioned by the 13th district council, Ciments Calcia and SEMAPA in collaboration with the Space Observatory and the National Centre for Space Studies’, which projects the colour fluctuations of solar storms onto the walls of two 40 meter Calcia silos bordering the capital’s 13 district. His most notable solo exhibitions in recent years include ‘PARAMUSEUM’ (2016) at Palais Fesch, Ajaccio, ‘Élysée’ (2016) in Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong and ‘Soleil Noir’ (2015) at the Foundation d’entreprise Hermès, Tokyo.

Bibliography

* ''Laurent Grasso – Le rayonnement du corps noir '', Dijon, Les presses du réel, 2009 * ''Laurent Grasso – The Black-Body Radiation'' (English edition), Dijon, Les presses du réel, 2009 * ''Laurent Grasso – The Horn Perspective'', Paris, Centre Pompidou editions, 2009 * ''Laurent Grasso – Uraniborg'', Jeu de Paume, Paris; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; Skira Flammarion, 2012 * ''Laurent Grasso – Future Archeology'', Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong, 2012

References

External links

*
Vidéo
« Laurent Grasso talks about his installation ''du soleil dans la nuit'' »
Nomiya
an architectural project on the rooftop of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris
Article on the exhibition at the "Espace 315" of the Centre Pompidou
for the Marcel Duchamp Prize
Laurent Grasso - Portrait of a Young Man
Bass Museum, Miami FL
Edouard Malingue Gallery
Hong Kong gallery representing Laurent Grasso {{DEFAULTSORT:Grasso, Laurent 1972 births Living people Artists from Mulhouse French contemporary artists French people of Italian descent