Menu

Olivier Mosset

Olivier Mosset, Untitled, 2016 Sprayed polyurethane on canvas, 120 × 120 inches (304.8 × 304.8 cm)Photo by Rob McKeever

Olivier Mosset, Untitled, 2016

Sprayed polyurethane on canvas, 120 × 120 inches (304.8 × 304.8 cm)
Photo by Rob McKeever

About

In pursuit of formal rigor and the physical roots of painting, Olivier Mosset’s art is direct and self-evident, suppressing figuration, subjectivity, symbol, and metaphor in a practice that at once contains and rejects the dialectical history of painting. A member of the minimalist collective BMPT that also included Daniel Buren, Michel Parmentier, and Niele Toroni, Mosset’s exploration is dedicated to interrogating fixed ideas about creative authorship. BMPT reflected critically on the spectacular, self-conscious nature of the new avant-garde in France. They suppressed subjectivity and expressiveness in favor of practical systems, such as the utilization of neutral, repetitive patterns and an apparent eschewal of aesthetic historical grounding. The 200 or more identical oil paintings that Mosset produced between 1966 and 1974, of a small black circle at the center of a square white canvas, are seen as the acme of BMPT’s experimental approaches to painting, which sought to challenge established methods of art-making and theorize a new social and political function for art and artists. Associated with conceptual abstraction, Mosset’s works represent pure color and shape, inciting open-ended physical experiences of surface, scale, and pattern.

Olivier Mosset was born in 1944 in Bern, Switzerland. Mosset’s work has been featured in several solo and group exhibitions. Recent solo museum exhibitions include Musée de Beaux-Arts La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland (1985); Centre d’Art Contemporain, France (1985); “Olivier Mosset 65–85,” Musée Sainte-Croix, France (1985); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (1986); Musée Saint Pierre Art Contemporain, Lyon (1987); “Arbeiten/travaux/works 1966–2003,” Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, Switzerland (2003); “Windows,” Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2006); Museo d’Arte di Mendrisio, Switzerland (2009); “A step backwards,” Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon, France (2010); “Leaving the Museum,” Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland (2012); “Sous apparence,” Opéra national de Paris, Palais Garnier, Paris (2012); “Fakes, fêlures and walls,” Musée Régional d'Art Contemporain Languedoc-Roussilon à Sérignan, France (2013).

Mosset currently lives and works in New York and Tuscon, Arizona.

Fairs, Events & Announcements

Helen Frankenthaler, Omen, 1980 © 2020 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Art Fair

artgenève 2020

January 30–February 2, 2020, booth B25
Palexpo, Geneva
artgeneve.ch

Gagosian is pleased to participate in artgenève 2020, with modern and contemporary works by Davide Balula, Georg Baselitz, Helen Frankenthaler, Simon Hantaï, Damien Hirst, Grant Levy-Lucero, Henri Matisse, Olivier Mosset, Giuseppe Penone, Pablo Picasso, David Reed, Sterling Ruby, Spencer Sweeney, and Tom Wesselmann, among others.

To receive a PDF with detailed information on the works, please contact the gallery at inquire@gagosian.com. To attend the fair, purchase tickets at artgeneve.ch.

Download the full press release in English (PDF) or French (PDF)

Helen Frankenthaler, Omen, 1980 © 2020 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Damien Hirst, Truffle, 2016 © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2018

Art Fair

artgenève 2019

January 31–February 3, 2019, booth B19
Palexpo, Geneva
www.artgeneve.ch

Gagosian is pleased to participate in artgenève 2019, with modern and contemporary artworks by Georg Baselitz, Chris Burden, Urs Fischer, Romuald Hazoumè, Damien Hirst, Sally Mann, Olivier Mosset, Steven Parrino, Giuseppe Penone, Richard Serra, Rudolf Stingel, Spencer Sweeney, Mark Tansey, Tatiana Trouvé, Tom Wesselmann, Franz West, and others.

To receive a PDF with detailed information on the works, please contact the gallery at inquire@gagosian.com. To attend the fair, purchase tickets at artgeneve.ch. To preview our booth, go to artsy.net.

Download the full press release in English (PDF) or French (PDF)

Damien Hirst, Truffle, 2016 © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2018

Giuseppe Penone, Pelle di foglie—5 foglie a terra, 2011 © Giuseppe Penone

Art Fair

artgenève 2018

February 1–4, 2018, booth B19
Palexpo, Geneva
www.artgeneve.ch

Gagosian is pleased to participate in artgenève 2018, presenting a selection of works by Richard Artschwager, Georg Baselitz, John Currin, Dadamaino, Edmund de Waal, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Peter Lindbergh, Vera Lutter, Man Ray, Sally Mann, Brice Marden, Olivier Mosset, Albert Oehlen, Steven Parrino, Giuseppe Penone, Sigmar Polke, Ed Ruscha, Blair Thurman, Tatiana Trouvé, Tom Wesselmann, Franz West, Rachel Whiteread, and others. 

If you wish to receive a PDF with detailed information on the works, please contact us at geneva@gagosian.com. Tickets are available at www.artgeneve.ch.

Giuseppe Penone, Pelle di foglie—5 foglie a terra, 2011 © Giuseppe Penone

See all News for Olivier Mosset

Museum Exhibitions

Closed

All of the Above
2011–2020

September 24–December 27, 2020
Kanal–Centre Pompidou, Brussels
kanal.brussels

Curated by artist John Armleder, All of the Above was inspired by his memories of feeling that he was being observed in return by the cultural artifacts he saw when he visited museums and temples as a child. This exhibition seeks to reproduce that experience by presenting a constellation of works by more than forty artists on a large multilevel platform to form a landscape that visitors can explore from a distance. Work by Chris Burden, Olivier Mosset, and Blair Thurman is included.

Olivier Mosset, ABC, 1997 © Olivier Mosset

Closed

Olivier Mosset

February 25–December 6, 2020
Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Geneva
www.mamco.ch

Olivier Mosset’s retrospective reviews his career over almost sixty years, from the early experiments of the 1960s to his monumental recent works, via the painter’s reflections on artistic appropriation, monochrome painting, and shaped canvases. In addition to his own work, several rooms are devoted to movements and artists with whom Mosset was or remains closely associated, allowing the viewer to consider his work in a variety of different contexts.

Olivier Mosset, ABC, 1997 © Olivier Mosset

Closed

None of the Above
2004–2020

September 24–November 15, 2020
Kanal–Centre Pompidou, Brussels
www.kanal.brussels

For None of the Above, John Armleder invited artists to present a work of art that is either no bigger than a postage stamp or immaterial. Originally presented at the Swiss Institute in New York in 2004, this new staging of the exhibition forces visitors to search for the artworks in the form of a conceptual treasure hunt conceived by Armleder. Work by Piero Golia, Olivier Mosset, and Blair Thurman is included.