Contemporary artist Laurent Grasso, whose immersive and labyrinthine devices combine films, sculptures, paintings, creating mysterious atmospheres, imagined for the Zadkine museum on the occasion of Nuit Blanche 2020 a night and dreamlike journey, an initiatory journey. Its presentation benefiting from an exceptional extension, the public will be able to experience the daytime course imagined by Laurent Grasso for Nuit Blanche from Tuesday October 6 until Sunday October 18.
Through immersive and labyrinthine devices mixing films, sculptures, paintings, the work of Laurent Grasso plunges the viewer into a disturbing world. The artist creates mysterious atmospheres that challenge the boundaries of our perceptions and our knowledge. Fascinated by the way various powers can affect our consciousness, Laurent Grasso attempts to capture, reveal and materialize the invisible, thus offering us new perspectives on history and reality.
For Nuit Blanche, the artist wanted to confront the pure and innocent gaze of a child with the metamorphoses of a world that is increasingly obscure and difficult to decipher. Several children's sculptures are staged, tracing a dreamlike journey through the Zadkine museum. They associate a human body with hybrid forms. The child, mediator, reveals the works presented to visitors, accompanying them on an initiatory journey. “Panoptes” (the one who sees everything) refers to the mythological figure of the shepherd Argos Panoptes whose face was covered with a hundred eyes in order to be able to constantly watch his flock. The motif of the eye, used in many carved rock sculptures, reflects a desire for omniscience that comes up against the opacity of a changing world.