EXHIBITIONS

Metaphysical Maze is an upcoming multi-venue exhibition by French conceptual artist Laurent Grasso. Anchored by the artist’s largest solo exhibition to-date in the United States, taking place at MASS MoCA, Metaphysical Maze will also comprise satellite installations at significant historical and cultural sites in the region, including an installation organized by The Olana Partnership at Olana State Historic Site in Hudson, NY, as well as projects at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, NY, and at Burlington City Arts in Burlington, VT.

Frederic Church’s OLANA:

Metaphysical Maze: Laurent Grasso at Frederic Church’s Olana and the Thomas Cole Site will be centered on an innovative and immersive presentation of the artist’s 2022 film Orchid Island within the context of the Dining Room / Picture Gallery of Olana’s Main House. Elsewhere in the House, 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. Recent paintings in Grasso’s Studies into the Past series have drawn direct inspiration from 19^th-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.

Metaphysical Maze: Laurent Grasso at Frederic Church’s Olana and the Thomas Cole Site will mark the conclusion of Frederic Church 200, a year-long celebration organized to extend Church’s legacy in the 200^th anniversary of his birth.

Thomas Cole National Historic Site:

Laurent Grasso describes eloquently his approach to the portion of the exhibition at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site:

“This selection of works for the Thomas Cole National Historic Site reflects an inquiry into how the perception of landscape has shaped our relationship to the world—between contemplation, exploration, and the power of representation. Cole’s legacy, at the intersection of art, science, and a spiritual vision of nature, resonates with my own research into the zones of ambiguity between reality and fiction, observation and mental projection. By revisiting this foundational site of the American gaze upon the landscape, I intend to explore the enduring tension between nature and artifice, between a romantic vision and contemporary technologies of perception.”

Grasso selected the pieces based on their relationship to Cole's work and one Cole painting in particular. The Cole painting is Thomas Cole's, Landscape with Clouds, 1846-47. The Grasso artworks in the presentation are: a new never-before-seen oil painting inspired by a Thomas Cole painting and created as part of Grasso's ongoing series, Studies into the Past; the film Anima, 2022; and the works Eternal Flame and Panoptes. 

About the Artist:

Born in France in 1972, Laurent Grasso has developed a fascination with the visual possibilities related to the science of electromagnetic energy, radio waves, and naturally occurring phenomena. Grasso is the recipient of the Meru Art*Science Award in Bergamo, Italy; the Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres; and the Marcel Duchamp Prize. He is the subject of a major monograph, Time Travel, published by Rizzoli in 2024. Grasso’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions at international institutions including the Abbaye of Jumièges, in France, Tao Art in Taiwan, the Collège des Bernardins and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum in Shanghai, the Jeonnam Museum of Art in Gwangyang, South Korea, the Palais Fesch, Musée des Beaux-Arts in Ajaccio, France, the Hermès Foundation in Tokyo, the Kunsthaus Baselland in Switzerland, the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Montréal, the Jeu de Paume and Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Bass Museum of Art in Miami, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. amongst others. Grasso has been included in many international biennials including the 21st Sydney Biennale, Australia (2018); EVA International, Limerick, Ireland (2018); Kochi, India (2014); Gwangju 9th, South Korea (2012); Manifesta 8, Cartagena/ Murcia, Spain (2010); Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2009); Moscow, Russia (2009); and Busan, South Korea (2004 and 2006). Laurent Grasso has recently created several permanent installations in public spaces including Solar Wind on the Paris ring road, and a group of sculptures entitled Roots of the Future, which was installed for the 2024 Paris Olympic Village. Grasso was also commissioned to create a permanent site-specific installation for the ceiling of the new train station in Châtillon-Montrouge, as part of the Grand Paris project. Laurent Grasso is represented by Perrotin and Sean Kelly.

The exhibition Metaphysical Maze: Laurent Grasso at Frederic Church's Olana and the Thomas Cole Site is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

The Olana Partnership is the 501(c)(3) not-for-profit cooperative partner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation at Olana State Historic Site.