olivier mosset

0i
Above all, his is an open system,
with many inputs and outputs,
constantly producing energy, vigor
and curiosity. Glass objects, stove
pipes, green plants and cactuses
and appropriated images are the
raw materials and instruments of
an art of collage, of things grafted
together and dramatically presented.
They become personae, nomadic
situations, preferring-instead of
putting down roots-to make the
most of wandering, and not content
even with that, continue to evolve,
demonstrating the perspicacity of a
new sense, situated somewhere
between high culture and the excessive pungency of popular expresof
sions. This combination
offhandedness and precision organizes relays that can establish connections between sometimes far-flung
domains, and bring them out of their
narrowness without betraying them.
With apparent effortlessness, in a
kind of look-no-hands way, beyond
civilized conventions, Fauguet gives
a certain elegance to this coexistence from which he draws the
mechanisms necessary for the
effectiveness and fertility of his
propositions.
With the Decimus Magnus Art
gallery transformed into a waiting
room, tables and chairs exchange
chrome-plated tubular structures
and Formica backs and seats, tabletops and extensions. They engage in
conversations of an infinite prodigality, upsetting the ordinary logic of
a stage setting, and with the aid of
motors act like strange insects. Here
exuberance is plenitude. In this
space there reigns a harmony, a
different
complicity between
elements that move, meet and
extend. Reality is reinforced by
fiction, and the latter slips into the
skin of the real. There is no basic
difference between them: each
fulfills the new role assigned to it in
the general euphoria. We enter this
waiting room as if coming aboard
some sort of indefinable vehicle
about to leave for an unknown
voyage. There are no particular
formalities. The haste of the departure and the idleness of the crossing
are both forgotten. We experience a
slowed-down, diluted time that
leaves the way open to a universe to
be decoded by a shrewd fabulist.
Obviously a good dose of humor is
needed for anyonetrying to grasp all
this and make it work. But not a lighthearted humor, northat of an amusing provocateurto be put back in his
place when he goes too far. No, this
humor is simply alive, incisive, linked
to a demanding activity and its
unpredictable invention.
Didier Arnaudet
Translation, L-S Torgoff
78
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OLIVIER MOSSET
Carre d'art -Musae d'art
contemporain
Galerie Georges Vemey-Carron
15 octobre 2004 - 9 janvier 2005
Finalement, de tous les membres de
BMPT (Buren, Mosset, Parmentier,
Toroni), Olivier Mosset est celui dont
l'oeuvre reste la plus m6connue. Mais
sans doute est-elle aussi la plus
complexe. Certes, I'homme a involontairement brouille les cartes, offrant
l'image d'un artiste refusant obstinement de jouer le role que le milieu
de l'art voulait le voir endosser: Suisse
d'origine, longtemps fran,ais d'adoption, membre de l'avant-garde artistique des annees 1970, fin
connaisseur de la jet-set internationale avant d'emigrer aux Etats-Unis,
baroudeur des espaces americains et
fanatique de moto au point de connaTtre pratiquement toutes les bandes
de bikers qui ont marqub l'histoire de
ce pays... Peut-on dbs lors s'6tonner
de voir le peu d'attention que les institutions ont accorde a cet artiste ?
Dernibrement, les choses ont changb.
C'est donc au tour du Carrb d'art de
Nimes de lui consacrer une courageuse retrospective autour d'une trentaine d'ceuvres datant de 1966 b nos
jours (d'autant plus courageuse qu'en
ces periodes de restriction budgbtaire,
ce genre d'exposition n'attire generalement pas les foules).
Olivier Mosset propose un parti pris
assez pedagogique: montrer
comment son ceuvre s'interroge sur
les donnees materielles du tableau
(taille, format, chAssis, couleurs, mode
d'application, repetition d'un motif ...).
L'ensemble ne rbpond donc b aucun
parti pris chronologique. Des ceuvres
du programme reductionniste de
BMPT rbpondent aussi bien aux
monochromes de la peinture (aradicale)s qu'aux toiles liees b la mouvance
n6o-geo. Alors, quelle legon tirer de ce
parcours souvent dense ? II semble
qu'il existe chez Olivier Mosset une
trbs nette tendance b s'insurger contre
le sublime et l'id6alisme qui dbcoule
de l'acte de peindre. Pour Mosset,
cette notion ne se resume pas uniquement b la traditionnelle categorie
esthetique du 18' sibcle. Etre un artiste
du sublime, c'est aussi et surtout se
conforter a une certaine idea de ce que
doit incarner l'ceuvre d'art. C'estjustement contre cette vision traditionnelle
et - avouons-le - romantique que
l'homme a decide de lutter. L'alternance trbs soigneuse entre les pibces
monumentales et les oeuvres de
dimensions restreintes rbpond sans
aucun doute b ce principe. Car n'oublions pas que les problbmes formels
mis en avant par cette exposition tournent autour de l'idea que toute peinture est desormais un objet degaga
des categories esthetiques : (La
mati/re picturale elle-m6me a un
caractere d'objet (... ) La peinture se
definit certes par une pratique, mais
aboutita un objet peint qui est la peinture. Etla peinture, c'est avant tout cet
objet peint qui est le resultat de cette
pratique.s Pour cette raison, dans le
montage meme des ceuvres. notamment dans la premibre partie de 1'exposition (s'achevant sur la serie des
toiles sans titre presentant un simple
cercle noirsurfond blanc [1969-1974]),
il est possible de saisir comment l'artiste a lentement renonce au dessin au
milieu des annees 1970 pour aboutir
au monochrome. ((Je desirais renon-
Olivier Mosset. oLila Square), 1990, Acrylique / toile, 280 x 320 cm. (O 0. Mosset;
Court. Galerie Les Filles du calvaire, Paris. Bruxelles). Acrylic/canvas
cer au dessin dans la question de la
peinture. Ainsi la toile elle-m6me
prenait touta coup valeur de dessin.))
La deuxieme partie de cette retrospective insiste plus sur l'impasse des
questionnements formels des annees
1980. Ce n'est donc pas un hasard si
les reuvres de la derniere salle contredisent d'une certaine maniere tout le
developpement d'une peinture neoconceptuelle nee dans le sillage des
artistes de la nouvelle abstraction
americaine. L'une des dernieres toiles
presentees, veritable clin d'ceil
ironique, presente une surface monochrome d'un jaune d'or 6clatant. Seule
perturbation, une large signature au
bas de la toile: Andy Warhol. Cette
collaboration momentanea reaffirme
combien Olivier Mosset n'est sans
doute pas si dupe d'une histoire qu'il
a contribue bfagonner. *Quantat moi,
je pense que l'on peint contre le fait
de ne pas pouvoirpeindre (...),je n'arrive peut-Qtre plus a appliquer de la
couleursurla toile. Pourtant, je continue a peindre, et mes toiles sont ce
qu'elles sont. Pourquoi alors faire le
malin en pensant qu'elles ne sontpas
ce qu'elles devraient etre ? Elles le
sont certainement.))
Damien Sausset
Autre exposition: Galerie Arnaud Lefebvre,
27 janvier- 27 fevrier 2005.
As it turns out, of all the members
of BMPT (Daniel Buren, Olivier
Mosset, Michel Parmentier and
Niele Toroni), Mosset's work is the
least known, even though it is incontestably the most complex. Of
course he has nobody to blame for
this situation but himself, involuntary as it might be. His image is that
of an artist who stubbornly refuses
to play the role the art world wants
him to play. Born in Switzerland,
with France his adopted country,
he became active in avant-garde
art in the 1970s and was quite familiar with the international jet set
before emigrating to the U.S., where
he became a wandering scrapper
and motorcycle nut who can recite
the names of just about every biker
gang the country has ever known.
Is it any wonder that museums
haven't paid more attention to this
artist? But things have been changing lately. Now the Carre d'Art in
Nimes has taken its turn in holding
a courageous retrospective, focusing on some 30 works from 1966to
today-a decision that was all the
more courageous because in a time
of budgetary restrictions shows like
this one don't usually set many
attendance records.
Mosset opted for a fairly pedagogical stance, demonstrating how his
TERROIItUE BOODIER
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BERNPIARID MARTIN
LARI PITTMAN
1 7 _j J,k:,1,
K.
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0. Mosset. 1" plan: S.t. 1994-2003. Bois peint. (Painted wood Coll. de I'artiste). Au
fond: *S.t. (yellow monochrome)", 1993, Acryl./toile, 200 x 400 cm. (Court. Gal. B.
Bischofberger, Zurich; O 0. Mosset ).Musee des beaux-arts, Lausanne, 2003.
VILLA ARSON NICE
E V Ministere de la Culture
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work interrogates itself in regard to
the material aspects of painting (size,
format, stretcher, colors, paint application mode, repetition of motifs,
etc.). As a result, chronology played
no role in this show. Paintings made
according to the reductionist BMPT
program are as much at home next
to his "radical" monochromes as
they are alongside his Neo-Geoinfluenced canvases. What should
we get out of this sometimes dense
exhibition layout? It seems that
Mosset has a very strong tendency
to revolt against the sublimity and
idealism entrained by the act of
painting. For Mosset, this concept
goes beyond the traditional eighteenth-century aesthetic category.
To be an artist of the sublime also
and above all means to take refuge
in a certain idea of what an artwork
should embody. In fact, it is exactly
againstthattraditional and, let's face
it, romantic vision, that he decided
to take up the cudgels. Clearly his
careful alternation between monumental pieces and work in smaller
dimensions follows from this principle. It must be kept in mind that the
formal issues underlined by this
exhibition have to do with the idea
that from now on every painting is
an object freed from aesthetic categories. "The materiality of a painting
itself has the character of an object...
Of course painting is defined by a
practice, but it leads to a painted
object, which is what a painting is.
And painting is above all the painted
object that is the result of that practice." Thus even the mounting of
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these paintings, especially in the
first part of this show (which ends
with the series of untitled paintings
with a simple black circle on awhite
background done between 1969-74),
you can see how this artist slowly
renounced draftsmanship in the
mid-1970s and ended up making
monochromes. "I wanted to
renounce the aspect of drawing in
painting, so that the canvas itself
suddenly acquired the value of
drawing."
The second part of this retrospective
emphasizes the dead end reached
by the examination of formal issues
taken up in the 1980s. It's no accident
that the work on view in the last
room contradicts, in a way, the
whole development of neo-conceptual painting in the wake of abstract
expressionism. One of the last
canvases in the exhibition layout,
an ironic tip of the hat, is a shiny
golden yellow monochrome. The
only problem is the big signature
on the bottom, Andy Warhol. This
momentary partnership shows the
degree to which Mosset is quite
aware of the history he continues to
make. "As far as I'm concerned, I
believe that one paints in opposition to the fact of not being able to
paint... Maybe I can't even apply
color to the canvas anymore. But I
keep painting anyway, and my
paintings are what they are. So why
act like a wise guy and think that
they're not what they should be?
They certainly are."
Damien Sausset
Translation, L-S Torgoff
79