PERROTIN PARIS PRESENTS ‘OTTO’ BY LAURENT GRASSO
Laurent Grasso, OTTO
Solo show
September 6 – October 6, 2018
76 rue de Turenne
Paris 3
Structured around a set of brand-new works and around the eponymous film, the exhibition interconnects sacred spaces, animistic beliefs and scientific theories. Each of these works concerns imperceptible and yet active phenomena that have in common the real or supposed effects of electromagnetic waves, vibrations and frequencies.
Continuing his exploration of the forms of political and scientific power, Laurent Grasso proposes new research into the power of waves, a matter which, although invisible, has tangible effects. The space of the gallery is bathed in frequencies emitted by hybrid and active sculptures whose electromagnetic activity can potentially act on the visitor’s body and mind.
A Steiner machine, spiral sculptures with hypnotic forms, glass spheres featuring conductive paintings gravitate around the new film Otto, shown here for the first time in France. In this work the artist continues his attempt to represent the immaterial and his research into aesthetic, fictional and poetic variations produced on the basis of scientific utopias, theories or mythologies.
Otto, 2018 . HD film, durée 00:21:26, 1/5 + 2 AP © Laurent Grasso / ADAGP Paris, 2018. Courtesy of the artist, Edouard Malingue Gallery, Sean Kelly Gallery & Perrotin.
Art historian Darren Jorgensen compares the work of Laurent Grasso to Roger Caillois’s research into ‘diagonal science’: ‘ In works made of gas, light, metal and stone, Grasso … [creates] a speculative diagram that joins incommensurable domains of knowledge. In this, he performs what the surrealist Roger Caillois calls “diagonal science,” in which “There are discernable cycles and symmetries, homologies and recurrences. Everything fits into one or several series. There is nothing that does not have its own counterpart or double, the cypher that recalls to our mind a certain premonition of it, or nostalgia for it”.’
Whether it is the slow and virtually hypnotic movement of the spheres crossing the aboriginal lands in the film Otto or the enveloping action of frequencies emitted by the sculptures, the works on display form a whole as a result of their capacity to act physically and mentally on visitors. In line with the themes explored by Laurent Grasso, the exhibition “Otto” evolves in a zone of uncertainty, where science must measure itself against the sacred and where the spiritual dimension of its environment finds a form of objectification.
