In Japan, Grasso’s solo exhibition Soleil Noir (“Black Sun”) was held atthe Ginza Maison Hermès Le Forum in 2015. In 2016, his work wasshown in The Universe and Art exhibition at the Mori Art Museum.During this time, he also researched Japanese culture, producing astrange and intriguing body of work that eclectically fuses Western andJapanese cultures. For his Studies into the Past series, Grasso painteda giant stone as a sacred object surrounded by samurais. The seriesalso features a painting and a sculpture inspired by the legend ofUtsurobune no Banjo, a foreign woman who appeared on the coast ofHitachi Province in a disc-shaped boat during the Edo period in the 19th century. Furthermore, his sculpture of a Christian monk with aninverted triangular head derived from Jomon clay figurines could beinterpreted as depicting ancient aliens.

The film Orchid Island shows monochromatic, documentary-likefootage of a verdant tropical island with a huge rectangular cloudhovering above it, like a monolith or a flying carpet. The cloud movesslowly and majestically, casting a rectangular shadow and black rainover the ocean and subtropical forests. It seems both supernatural anddivine entity. The haunting melody and the juxtaposition of primevalnature with the rectangular cloud – an object of science fiction andmyth – create an atmosphere that makes it impossible to identify whenthe film takes place.

The film is based on footage shot on Taiwan’s Orchid Island (Lanyu),once known for its wild orchids but now home to a radioactive wastestorage facility. Around the 18th century, orchids began to be importedfrom subtropical Asia to the West, where they were cared for andhybridized into new varieties. A sense of exoticism surrounded theorchids and the subtropical, often colonial regions where orchids grewwild. Most people associate native Taiwanese orchids with thePhalaenopsis variety. However, the small, dainty white orchids originallydiscovered in Taiwan were transformed into the gorgeous Phalaenopsiswe know today through Japanese cultivation techniques. This factbrings to mind the various relationships between Japan and Taiwan.

Furthermore, in Western art history, as described in Hubert Damisch’s_A Theory of /Cloud/_1 , clouds were often used to delineate the boundarybetween the world of God and the world of humans. This boundaryserved as an aspiration and a limit to human spiritual progress and as asymbol for angels who passed freely between heaven and earth.Clouds have an irregular shape, constantly changing, absorbing theprojections and imaginations of those who gaze at them. They alsosymbolize the veil between reality and fiction, a translucent, gray zone.Today, the word “cloud” also refers to a storage place for data, thefoundation of our information society.

The cloud in Grasso’s work is an abstract rectangular frame, movingthrough the sky and looking down on nature from a divine perspective,reminiscent of the monolith in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey andthe Panopticon as theorized by Jeremy Bentham and Michel Foucault.The radar that appears as a contrast to the hibiscus petals in the filmreminds us that nature is kept under surveillance and control. The blackrain can be seen as a blessing for nature or a source of environmentalpollution, like nuclear rain. Taiwan is a geopolitically complex location.The black rectangular cloud that appears over it could also be a datacloud that stores geopolitical information and serves as a window orscreen for promoting awareness of the various crises.

The surfaces of the four landscape paintings in this exhibition arecovered with a translucent filter, materializing the cloud that functionedas a moving screen in the film. In addition, there are several smallerclouds made of black marble, providing a sharp contrast to the godlikecloud of the film. Yet, considering that marine life on the ocean floorbecomes limestone and eventually marble through tectonic movement,these small clouds may harbor the memory of the water that poured intothe ocean from this colossal black cloud.

The supernatural, science-fiction-like phenomena that frequentlyappear in Grasso’s works suggest that what we perceive as reality maybe nothing more than images shared by society and that an analysis ofinvisible elements may produce a completely different reality. Torecognize this reality, we need a perspective not limited to a particularperiod, allowing us to move freely through time. In today’s society, theinternet has become ubiquitous, and, as a result, information from thepast and present coexist, much like the twinkling of stars. We may seethe light of stars that have long since ceased to exist and think they arestill shining. When asked whether he believed in linear or circular time,Grasso replied: “I believe in both.” Like the monolith in 2001: A SpaceOdyssey, considered a metaphor for CinemaScope, his blackrectangular cloud can be seen as a screen reflecting contemporaryenvironmental and geopolitical issues, offering a perspective thattranscends time and space.

It is also worth noting that landscapes and clouds are the subjects ofthis work. During the Renaissance (from the 14th to 16th century),Western art used landscapes as backdrops for religious, historical, andmythological narratives. Leon Battista Alberti introduced the idea of apainted image as a rectangular “window,” which led to the developmentof perspective. Thereafter, painters who were freed from religion andadopted a scientific viewpoint began to depict nature as it was. By the17th century, landscapes had become a subject matter in their ownright. In the East, by contrast, landscapes had already existed as agenre of painting since the 5th or 6th century, showing an otherworldlyparadise inhabited by mountain hermits.

Press release courtesy Perrotin. Text: Reiko Tsubaki.