Olivier Mosset

“The Swiss-born artist Olivier Mosset gained attention in the [mid 1980s] when his paintings were included in ‘neo-geo’ and ‘new abstraction’ shows, but the roots of his practice go back further. It was in 1967 that Mosset exhibited in Paris with Daniel Buren, Michel Parmentier, and Niele Toroni under the group name BMPT in the Musée de l’Art Moderne’s annual ‘Salon de la Jeune Peinture’. Their aim was to demystify painting, to rid it of metaphysical overtones, and to reveal paintings material, or historical, foundation as a signifying practice. Although the format of Mosset’s work has varied considerably [since then], his initiative remains unchanged… Mosset seems to appeal to us to recognize painting’s coded nature as it is produced and perceived, crafted and interpreted. These austere, intelligent works dramatize the division between art’s materialist producer and its idealist receiver, who, by projecting extramaterial values onto the work, still clings to auratic ideology.”

Kate Linker, “Olivier Mosset”, Artforum, April 1987, Vol. 25, No. 8, p. 124