With Ramp and Kyiv II, Olivier Mosset presents a super skate ramp in the main space of the gallery and a wall painting.
“The aesthetic/political thing is a complicated issue. I don’t like talking about it too much because the formal, the aesthetic, is of course political to me. There is also an ethic in the aesthetic. In the ‘70s I separated my art practice from my relationships to friends who had motorcycles. It was two different things. I met my biker friends in Paris after the events of May ’68, but I was always aware of the aesthetic quality of that object, the motorcycle. Of course, I had a certain admiration for these friends, their outlaw lifestyle and their rebellious attitude towards society. But I felt my art was questioning the system, too. It’s true that a revolution is not a dinner party or a painting, and I’m interested in painting and in showing paintings and / or, these days, painted cars or motorcycles. This is not a specifically political activity – and yet, to my mind, there is something political about it. I have said before that if you really want to be political, get involved in politics (though you might get your ass kicked). Then again, there is something ideological or political about any activity. You have to remember, though, that activities that are essentially political are not activism, which is something else. I guess the political has to do with the economy, which is all around us. I know there is a contradiction. I guess artistic activity is a practice of contradictions. Now, because I’ve met artists interested in that aesthetic, everything has collapsed into a single world. I still believe that a painting or a “chopper” is saying something: either you get it or you don’t.”
– conversation between Olivier Mosset, Elisabeth Wetterwald and Vincent Szarek published on Wheels, Edition Patrick Frey, 2018.
