Exhibition Text by Yujin Lee

Florian Bong Kil Grosse arrived in Jeju Island, South Korea, on August 20, 2020 to participate in INTO JEJU, an international Artist-in-Residence program organized by artist Yujin Lee. In Jeju, Grosse created two series of works, Blank Verse and Ivy Green, that were exhibited at Cafe Gamjeo from October 3 – 14, 2020.

Blank verse is a type of poem that uses rhythmic syllables and accents instead of rhymes. Grosse designated this title to a series of black and white photographs that he took of Jeju’s nature. These images seem familiar and unfamiliar, tranquil yet pulsating at the same time. Grosse records varying surfaces of the island, such as scenes from the Mt. Halla hike, a field of tangerine trees, natural and artificial caves, night seas, rocks, and a spider web. According to art critic Lee Nayun, they “...are not of Jeju...... On his previous trips to Jeju, Grosse focused on capturing a stillness within an environment that was not native to him. Today, his attention is nowhere near the foreign landscapes of his past interests.” In Blank Verse, Grosse whispers a mystical story, unfamiliar even to the people of Jeju. His images allure the viewer to fall into the unsettling depth of the inky blackness of the photograph.

Ivy Green, the title of a series of ten color photos, comes from a poem by British novelist Charles Dickens written in 1836. Dickens humorously describes the vitality of vines which ultimately outlives human civilization. Though Jeju is famous for its special vine forests called Gotjawal, Grosse took photos of a rather prosaic vines found by the roads that are often overlooked if not detested. He states, “I am attracted to the wild nature of vines. A vine cannot have a form on its own, but once it starts growing over something with a form (whether that is a pole or a tree), it turns it into its own.”

Art critic Lee Nayun concludes, “Bong Kil found nebulous forms of abstraction from the ever-changing natural landscape of Jeju, and accordingly, his new body of work may continue to transform pre and post exhibition.” As the curator, I propose to the viewers to enjoy this album of 26 photos from Grosse’s solo exhibition Island: Blank Verse and Ivy Green without a fixed order of arrangement or interpretation.