Laurent Grasso Bridges Luxury and Museums, Reveals the Uneasy Side of Paradise
Creatrip Team
4 months ago
French artist Laurent Grasso (53) is showing "Laurent Grasso: Memories of the Future" at Daejeon HEREDIUM, presenting works that blur history, nature and artifice. His video piece "Orchid Island" (set on Taiwan’s Orchid Island, 랜위섬) depicts an idyllic landscape hiding colonial violence and a nuclear waste site; Grasso uses mysterious black rectangular forms to evoke the island’s buried anxieties. Known for crossing media—video, painting, sculpture—and collaborating with fashion houses, his artworks recently inspired Louis Vuitton garments and a Bulgari watch. Grasso says collaborations with fashion directors (not brands themselves) are creative exchanges rather than marketing, praising Nicolas Ghesquière’s shared interest in layered places and time. Choosing HEREDIUM (a restored building that once housed the Dongyang Chuksik Company during Japanese colonial rule) reflects his interest in sites with fraught histories. If he creates work about Korea, he would focus on subtle, less visible forms of violence—"the violence of democracy"—rather than obvious sites like the DMZ. He hopes visitors experience the show like a forest walk: not needing to decode meanings but to feel and wander through surreal landscapes.
