# 93. Concorde. Laurent Grasso. Uraniborg 22 May 23 September 2012

Transcription

1 # 93 Concorde Laurent Grasso Uraniborg 22 May 23 September 2012

2 Bomarzo, 2011 Production: Fondation Cartier pour l art contemporain and Laurent Grasso Courtesy Galerie chez Valentin, Paris & Sean Kelly Gallery, New York Studies into the past Ellen and Michael Ringier Collection, Switzerland Courtesy Galerie chez Valentin, Paris All observation is a partial way of apprehending reality. The work of Laurent Grasso explores the interstices of this partial observation, that is to say, he conjures up spaces of uncertainty or doubt aroused by any conjecture, whether in the field of science, history, perception or belief, in order to construct parallel realities capable of testing our system of knowledge and our critical capacity. The point, for him, is not to test the truth of our suppositions, but to exploit their fractures and tensions and make them the raw material of his work. Observation, but also control, surveillance, the power or domination of science or belief, as well as the simultaneity or reversibility of time, are among the fields he explores. Each of his pieces develops multiple, simultaneous narratives which transform what is known or familiar into a disorienting psychological and, sometimes, physical experience. The commonly held perception according to which it is the instruments of observation and surveillance that wield power, independently of those who manipulate them, is what Grasso puts into practice. In this exhibition at the Jeu de Paume, the artist extends this notion of diffuse power (what Michel Foucault would have called deindividualised power ) in order to elicit ideas about the panoptical strategies of power. He has specially conceived a labyrinthine set-up complete with corridors and double passages, based on the panopticon idea. This affords visitors singular experiential spaces that constantly impel them to reconfigure their grid references. The set-up gives concrete expression to the connections between each of the films shown here and an invisible, parallel reality: the ghosts of history in Bomarzo, an invisible enemy in The Silent Movie, a miraculous phenomenon in Les Oiseaux, and the reconstruction of a lost past in Uraniborg. By proposing a simultaneity of temporal and spatial experiences, by extending the relation between the known and the unknown, or contracting the distance between the visible and the unverifiable, Grasso reveals the asymmetry between seeing and being seen and produces a subtle dizziness in the spectator, which in the end makes us doubt our capacity to apprehend the world around us. Marta Gili, curator of the exhibition

3 1610 III, 2011 François Blanc Collection Courtesy Galerie chez Valentin, Paris & Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong Uraniborg, 2012 Production: Jeu de Paume and Laurent Grasso Courtesy Galerie chez Valentin, Paris, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York & Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong room 1 Bomarzo, 2011 Bomarzo was filmed in the gardens at Bomarzo, also known as the Park of Monsters (Parco dei Mostri), built by Count Vicino Orsini around 1550 in the province of Viterbo, Italy. The park houses extravagant sculptures illustrating mythological themes and characters, several of them inspired by the Dream of Poliphilus. The voice-over narrative is a construction combining the quotations engraved on the bases of the sculptures, plaques and sections of wall, documents and studies on Bomarzo and the Dream of Poliphilus. The garden was rediscovered in the 1930s by the surrealists. Even today, the park continue to mystify, prompting multiple interpretations. Studies into the past Studies into the past is the generic title of a conceptual project bringing together drawings and oils on panel with a style and finish inspired by Flemish and Italian painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Bruegel, Piero Della Francesca, Botticelli, Fra Angelico... References characteristic of that period are mixed in with elements from the future, with strange, celestial phenomena, such as eclipses, the aurora borealis, meteorites, clouds of birds or smoke and a stone levitating above a landscape. This mixture of past, present and future is designed to produce a false historical memory. room 2 Les Oiseaux, 2008 Filmed in the sky over the Vatican in Rome, flocks of starling move swiftly in the sky, forming graphic shapes. The birds behave like particles shifting randomly in a magnetic field. Some civilizations interpret flights of starlings as presages. The Construction of History, 2012 The film was shot from the diplomatic cortege at the funeral of Pope John Paul II at the Vatican, in It shows the theatrical culture and importance of the symbolic effects deployed by the Vatican. Production: Jeu de Paume and Laurent Grasso 1610 III, reprises a drawing by Galileo from his book Sidereus Nuncius ( starry messenger ), published in This work in neon reinterprets the original drawing of a constellation of stars and establishes

4 Horn Antenna, 2010 Courtesy Galerie chez Valentin, Paris & Sean Kelly Gallery, New York The Silent Movie, 2010 Production: Manifesta 8, CNAP and Laurent Grasso Courtesy Galerie chez Valentin, Paris & Sean Kelly Gallery, New York Private Collection a parallel between the time it takes for light from the stars to reach us and the time it took the Church to rehabilitate Galileo after accusing him of heresy. room 3 Uraniborg, 2012 Uraniborg, or palace of Urania, which takes its name from the muse of astronomy, was built in 1576 on the island of Ven, between Denmark and Sweden. Financed by King Frederick II, the palace housed the biggest observatory in Europe, where the astronomer Tycho Brahe spent twenty years recording and analyzing the configuration of the stars and movements of the planets. This unique construction is like a giant seeing apparatus, with openings that afford direct observation of the sky. Tycho Brahe ruled the island like a tyrant until the death of Frederick II. He left the site in 1597, following the destruction of his estate by the islanders. Today, hardly anything remains of the castle. The circumstances surounding Brahe s death in 1601 are mysterious. The astronomer Johannes Kepler is suspected of having poisoned him. The film Uraniborg returns to the island of Ven and is like a documentary about something invisible, Tycho Brahe s castle, which no longer exists. Built before the invention of the astronomical telescope, this castle-observatory had numerous openings giving onto the sky. A voice-off explores this fault line in the visible and weaves connections between architecture and the notion of the exhibition apparatus. Production: Jeu de Paume and Laurent Grasso Rétroprojection, 2007 The Rétroprojection series of works made on the basis of historical sources, archives and official documents. The images come from illustrations to scientific books, several of which are taken from Camille Flammarion s L Astronomie populaire (1879). They illustrate celestial phenomena: eclipses, comets, meteorites and constellations. room 4 On Air, 2009 Flying over remote, mysterious sites in the United Arab Emirates, a falcon films that country s lunar desert landscapes, fitted with a tiny camera that transforms a traditional form of hunting into an espionage tool or primitive spy evoking a living drone in a conflict zone.

5 room 5 room 4 room 1 room 2 room 3 entrance room 5 Horn Antenna, 2010 Horn Antenna is a model recreating a nineteenthcentury laboratory. More precisely, the work refers to the experiments carried out in 1964 by two American radio-astronomers, Arno A. Penzias and Robert W. Wilson, which led to the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, an echo of the Big Bang that created the universe ten billion years ago. The Horn antenna is used to measure the power of the radio waves emitted by the Milky Way. The Silent Movie, 2010 Produced for the eighth edition of Manifesta in Cartagena (Spain), The Silent Movie examines the military architecture of the coast around Cartagena. The images gradually reveal the military installations camouflaged in the surrounding landscape. Placed at the centre of a tension between the visible and the invisible, the near and the far, the camera adopts the viewpoints, alternately, of attacker and besieged. From an external perspective to internal vision, the site comes across as one vast surveillance apparatus. related events Saturday 26 May and 30 June, 3.30pm z Children First! visit and workshop Points of view, shadows and projections Tuesday 26 June, 6pm z Young Visitors Tuesday Tours: tour of the exhibition Laurent Grasso by the artist and Marta Gili Tuesday 31 July, 6pm z Young Visitors Tuesday Tours: tour of the exhibitions Laurent Grasso and Rosa Barba with a Jeu de Paume lecturer z publication: Laurent Grasso : Uraniborg, texts by Marie Fraser, Marta Gili, Hélène Meisel, Sébastien Pluot, Mathilde Roman, co-edition Skira Flammarion / éditions du Jeu de Paume, bilingual French/English, 192 pages, 17 x 26,5 cm, 35,50

6 Jeu de Paume Concorde exhibitions 22 May 23 September 2012 Eva Besnyö ( ), The Sensuous Image Laurent Grasso: Uraniborg Satellite Programme, Rosa Barba: Back-door Exposure until 18 September 2012 z Virtual Space, Side Effects cycle: Form@ts forthcoming exhibitions 16 October January 2013 z Muntadas. Entre / Between z Manuel Álvarez Bravo, a Photographer on Watch z Satellite Programme, Filipa César practical information 1 Place de la Concorde, Paris access via the Tuileries Gardens, Rue de Rivoli entrance information +33 (0) Tuesday (late opening) 11am 9pm Wednesday to Sunday 11am 7pm closed Monday exhibitions: admission: 8.50; concessions: 5.50 free admission to the exhibitions of the Satellite Programme Young Visitor s Tuesday: free admission for students and visitors under 26 every last Tuesday of the month from 5pm to 9pm guided tours and workshops: free admission on presentation of the exhibition ticket of the day Tours for individual visitors with guides from the Jeu de Paume Wednesday and Saturday at 12.30pm Family Tours Saturday at 3.30pm (except last Saturday of the month) by reservation on +33 (0) /rendezvousenfamille@jeudepaume.org Children First! visit and workshop for 7 to 11 year olds every last Saturday of the month at 3.30pm by reservation on /lesenfantsdabord@jeudepaume.org Young Visitors Tuesday Tours every last Tuesday of the month at 6pm Jeu de Paume extramural exhibition 16 June 4 November 2012 z Pierre Bourdieu: Pictures of Algeria an elective affinity Château de Tours 25 Avenue André-Malraux, Tours information +33 (0) Tuesday to Friday 2pm 6pm Saturday and Sunday 2.15pm 6pm admission: 3; concessions: 1.50 guided tours: Saturday at 3pm forthcoming exhibition 24 November June 2013 z Jacques-Henri Lartigue Château de Tours Curators for the Jeu de Paume: the artist and Marta Gili Curators for the Musée d art contemporain de Montréal: the artist and Marie Fraser This exhibition is co-produced by the Jeu de Paume, Paris and the Musée d art contemporain de Montréal. The Jeu de Paume receives a subsidy from the Ministry of Culture and Communication. Les Amis du Jeu de Paume contribute to its activities. The Jeu de Paume gratefully acknowledges special support from Neuflize Vie, its global partner, for this exhibition. Neuflize Vie With the support of the Compagnie de Phalsbourg. On Air, Production: 9th Sharjah Biennial and Laurent Grasso. Courtesy Galerie chez Valentin, Paris & Sean Kelly Gallery, New York translation: Charles Penwarden Laurent Grasso ADAGP, Paris, 2012 Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2012 In partnership with: