Review

Exhibition 9th March till 12th June 2013





Did you say contemporary?

By Dominique Aclange



According to some ‘specialist’ publications, a great piece of art is that which sells millions, no matter how incomprehensible. Let’s face it, contemporary art is at times an intellectual Chinese puzzle and goes far beyond anyone’s understanding. Since the meaning of contemporary is belonging to the present time, one can legitimately wonder what ‘contemporary art’ is trying to achieve and how? The Olivier Mosset exhibition on at the Musée régional d’art contemporain in Sérignan stirs these questions in me.
Olivier Mosset (b.1944), who, as a matter of interest, is the first artist to whom the Museum of Sérignan has offered a solo exhibition since its opening in 2006, is presented in the museum paper guide as ‘… pursuing a search on the future of painting through geometrical abstraction and monochrome’. Claiming to belong to the ‘Radical Painting’ movement, which is characterized by mostly monochrome works that focus on colour effects, shading and material properties without external motifs, painting is, according to Mosset, ‘not something to look at, but something that looks at itself’, or in the artist’s own words: la peinture

                                                                                                 se regarde elle-même.

                                                                                                 

                                                                                                This is certainly true regards Mosset’s approach to art where the symbolism of the mirror

                                                                                                represented by a silver-aluminum wall (inspired by Warhol’s Factory where his New-York City

                                                                                                studio walls were covered with aluminum foil) has the affect of reflecting an acrylic painting

                                                                                                on canvas (Untitled (1970)) hanging opposite. Two dilemmas have then to be considered: the

                                                                                                first, looking at the painting which looks at itself; and second, finding the mirrored image. But

                                                                                                before anything, like playing hide and seek, it is the visitor who is invited to discover the

                                                                                                painting behind the wall since, as Duchamp said, “It is the viewer who makes the work of

                                                                                                art.”  He perhaps should have added, “If he finds it.” Duchamp’s influence, whose own artistic

                                                                                                approach was initiated by Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) and with whom Mosset worked as

                                                                                                assistant in the mid-sixties, is revealed here. And while Duchamp fabricated the new ‘ready-

                                                                                                made’ notion as being full-fledged art, thus opening the door to minimalism, Mosset’s art is

                                                                                                handmade and maximal judging by the size of some of his pieces.

 

The ground floor offers a beautiful space with a polished concrete floor and continuous window frames all along the left wing which lets the light flood in. It was the choice of the artist to leave the white blinds open in order to accentuate the power of the light. 11 giant canvases (each measuring 3x3m) occupy this glorious space, however the shiny effect of the grey concrete floor competes in size and colour with the monochrome paintings.
My question is: what are these large canvas surfaces supposed to convey? In different shades of green, reds or blues, with one brown and one yellow, they have been finished with what is essentially an anti-slip protective paint. Some are scarred and nicknamed ‘fake’ or labeled ‘failure’, destined to disappear or to be conserved. All are signed by Mosset, who identified them at the time of the exhibition, ‘in pursuit of his questioning the notions of signature and authorship’. In the same space there is also a series of 5 ‘sculptures’ or 5 white, volumetric identical, white rectangles which to me could just as well be electric boxes. Is this an allusion to The 2001 Space Odyssey?!
On the first floor, I discover one of Mossets signature creations, his famous painted black ring, referred to above, is shown facing a silver wall. This creation has been repeated over and over again since 1966 without any major changes except in the size and colour of the ring and background. Three monumental murals complete the main area: a bright yellow wall, a divided grey and white wall and an allusion to Buren’s style representing a yellow and blue Scottish flag-like painting. To complete the first floor visit, a series of eight identical, brown anti-slip

‘serve-no-purpose’ paintings face a similar size canvas as The Wedding Feast at Cana (1563) by Veronese, but this time entirely brown. Finally, the exhibition points to some

geometric serigraphy, photographs and lithographs. Unfortunately however, the dim light in the

graphic art room makes them hard to see, by which time I am looking forward to getting away

from this seemly endless swirl of unanswered questions.

Olivier Mosset was a founder member of the B.M.P.T group from1966 to 1967, so named after

the initials of the 4 artists who created it (Buren, Mosset, Parmentier, Toroni). When asked in

1967 why he painted a black ring in the middle of his canvas replied: “A priori, like this, for

nothing”. Pierre Soulages, on the other hand, recently interviewed in the French newspaper

Le Figaro (10th March, 2013) says: “The artist proposes. In all my paintings I didn’t want to

transmit, I wanted to communicate.”  So the question remains: if ‘the artist proposes’ as

Soulages suggests, what is Mosset proposing? If the ring is ‘for nothing, why has it continued

to be recreated over the years?

 

Did you say contemporary?

Or did you say Chinese puzzle? 

 

‘Radical painting’ enables the observer to sensually experience the picture with its

independently perceived colour and light values, but isn’t it rather ‘Being Radically

Perplexed’ or living the experience of an Independent colored painting observer ?



Help!

Musée régional d’art contemporain Languedoc-Roussillon
146 avenue de la Plage, 34410 Sérignan

Open Tuesday to Friday 10 am/6 pm, week-end 1 pm/6 pm, closed Monday and bank holiday