Olivier Mosset

The work

Hot Cake
1988-2007
210 x 200 cm
Acrylic on canvas

On a nearly square canvas measuring 2 m on each side painted in a flat mustard yellow, the artist presents four blue lines, two vertical and two horizontal, that divide the surface into nine smaller geometric figures. The abstraction of an elemental geometry is complete; only the color comes from the artist’s personal or subjective choice.

The artist

Bern, 1944)

Olivier Mosset was one of the founders of the BMPT collective in 1966, the initials of Daniel Buren, Mosset himself, Michel Parmentier, and Niele Toroni (also present in this Foundation’s collection).
BMPT was a minimalist group that questioned fundamental ideas such as creative authorship. BMPT experimented with neutral compositions and repetitive patterns, rejecting the historical aesthetic foundations and the spectacular nature of the new avant-garde movements. They sought a “zero point” in painting, locating an initial moment of reflection that transcends any form of figuration, subjectivity, or symbolism.
Mosset works with extreme abstraction, using large canvases, diverse shapes, and bright, monochrome colors. Reclaiming the autonomy of the work, the artist instigates the physical experience of surface, scale, and texture.
An active part of the New York art scene of the 1980s, Mosset emerged as one of the few European painters capable of integrating himself into the North American tradition of large-format works. Throughout his career, Mosset has experimented with aesthetic resources while maintaining conceptual consistency, reclaiming “the urgency of starting everything over again, from the beginning, to question the validity of the painting.”