Vädersolstavlan (Swedish for 'The Sundog Painting’) is an oil-on-panel painting depicting a halo display, an atmospheric optical phenomenon, observed over Stockholm on 20 April 1535. It is named after the parhelion phenomenon (parhélie in French) or sun dogs (Swedish: Vädersol, lit. ‘weather sun’) appearing on the upper right part of the painting. While chiefly noted for being the oldest depiction of Stockholm in color, it is arguably also the oldest Swedish landscape painting and the oldest depiction of sun dogs.

Laurent Grasso (French, b. Mulhouse 1972) has developed a fascination with the visual possibilities related to the science of electromagnetic energy, radio waves and naturally occurring phenomena. Grasso explores these sciences as they apply to paranormal activity, a favorite subject of 18th century scientists and philosophers, often used as parlor entertainment during the Victorian era.

Incorporating imagery culled from the cinema and art history, Grasso works in video, sculpture, painting, and drawing to recreate phenomena – both human and natural – that set up surreal and ambiguous juxtapositions of time and space. Grasso often intentionally manipulates imagery by imposing unique and unusual perspectives onto his subject matter, thereby subverting the viewer’s instinct to accept what they see at face value. A continually shifting viewpoint is at the heart of Grasso’s aesthetic sensibility – in Grasso’s words, “the idea is to construct a floating viewpoint, thereby creating a discrepancy in relation to reality. We move from one viewpoint to another, and that’s also how we manufacture states of consciousness.”

Most recently, Laurent Grasso has received several large scale commissions in Paris — an installation on the Boulevard Périphérique, a collection of sculptures for the 2024 Olympic Village, and a site-specific ceiling installation in the new train station in Châtillon-Montrouge. In 2026, Grasso will be the subject of a solo exhibition at Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA.

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, Laurent Grasso: Soleil Double published by Dilecta in 2015. In 2024, Rizzoli published Time Travel, which explores Grasso’s expansive oeuvre, exploring science, natural phenomena, and contemporary mythologies, to present a visual journey of his avant-garde, conceptual work. His work has been the subject of 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).