Exhibition
Opening reception, Thursday September 9, 1999, 6-8p.m.
The Spencer Brownstone Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibit of new works by Swiss artist, Olivier Mosset. For the exhibition, Mosset will be exhibiting 2 new, large-scale monochromes.
Olivier Mosset’s career has spanned over three decades. Exposed to the art scene of Paris through assisting Tinguely and Spoerri with their work, Mosset became quickly linked with an avant-garde that was defining an aesthetic of nihilism, attempting to eliminate the qualities of traditional painting. Cage’s manifesto on Rauschenberg’s white paintings: “No subject, No image, No taste, No Beauty, No message, No talent, No technique, No idea, No intention, No art, No feeling.” became a catalyst for Mosset’s own ideas on painting. In 1964, Mosset had begun white painted collages or canvases with numbers, letters, and words like “RIP” or “THE END” and rings or horizontal or diagonal black lines. Trying to simplify painting, Mosset reduces and trivializes it’s vocabulary of form. This reductivist stance and tenets of neutrality or self-effacement, led Mosset to form the Paris collaborative B.M.P.T., with fellow artists, Buren, Parmentier, and Toroni in 1967.
For the 10th Paris Biennale Exhibition of 1977, Mosset created a wall-sized canvas covered with a layer of red. The painting was mistaken for a wall, and passed unnoticed. This was considered by the artist to be the categorical embodiment of his approach to monochrome painting; investing a principle of neutrality and anonymity, coupled with an aesthetic of indifference.
Artist Bio
Olivier Mosset continues to hone his attitudes on painting, and it could be said that his work has anticipated many currents in contemporary art. Mosset is currently exhibiting with Cady Noland at the Migros Museum for Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland. Among his numerous gallery and museum exhibitions, in 1990, he represented Switzerland in the Venice Biennale.