OVERVIEW

Metaphysical Maze: Laurent Grasso at Frederic Church’s Olana and the Thomas Cole Site will present the work of acclaimed French conceptual artist Laurent Grasso at Olana, the historic artist home and landscape of Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), and the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, the historic home and studios of Thomas Cole (1801–1848). The joint exhibition provides site-specific engagement with relevant histories through which to view Grasso’s practice of integrating his work into settings of different time periods.

The exhibition at the Thomas Cole Site will include Thomas Cole’s oil painting Landscape with Clouds (1846–47), which is juxtaposed with Laurent Grasso’s film Anima, his neon sculptures Projection and Eternal Flame, his red marble sculpture Panoptes, and a new, never-before-seen painting, inspired by Thomas Cole, in his Studies into the Past. Playing off the clouds in Cole’s painting, Grasso explores that element in other media. In doing so, he transfers the concept to both the less-material film and the most-material neon.

The joint exhibition will accompany a broader exhibition of Grasso’s work at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA: Metaphysical Maze, the largest exhibition to date in the United States devoted to Grasso. Each of the exhibitions is curated by guest curator Denise Markonish.

Laurent Grasso, Anima, 2022, film, 18 ft. x 14 in. projection, Courtesy the artist

Thomas Cole, Landscape with Clouds, 1846–47, oil on canvas, 48 x 72 in., Collection of Bob and Carol Lockyer

More information on Olana is available at www.olana.org.