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Violet, Blue

2003

OLIVIER MOSSET

The work of Olivier Mosset is deployed through geometric abstraction, monochrome painting and post-abstraction. It is an uninterrupted, 40-year meditation on the fate of painting in the era of global capitalism. Its impact is related to its unique context: Olivier Mosset is the only European painter who immediately positioned himself in the wake of great abstract painting (Frank Stella, Robert Ryman, Jasper Johns) and by doing so, was able to take part in the artistic debates of the 1980s and 1990s in the USA. Dividing his time between the two continents since 1977, acting as a mediator between the two cultures, he has used this dialogue as inspiration to create a body of work using American formats and Western critical thought.

OLIVIER MOSSET

Born in 1944

Olivier Mosset is essentially known to the public for having participated, in 1967 and 1968, in the famous movement begun by four artists in revolt against artistic institutions: Buren, Mosset, Parmentier, Toroni (BMPT). Althrough he is a major symbolic figure today for the young generation of contemporary European and American painters, the remainder of his career is still not well known. His oeuvre does not simply consist of the famous "Circles" of the BMPT period. Mosset's impact, which is so strong that he was nominated to represent Switzerland at the Venice Biennale in 1990, is attached to his particular situation: Mosset is in fact the only European painter to be situated immediately after the great abstract painters (Franck Stella, Robert Ryman, Jasper Johns) and thus to have been able to really participate in the artistic debates in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. Thanks to his dialogue, and as a mediator between the two cultures, making both continents his homes since 1977, he has made works on an American scale that challenge Western critical thinking.