Taken from Wheels by Olivier Mosset © Olivier Mosset, courtesy of Edition Patrick Frey
50 years ago, France was marked by a period of student uprisings known today as ‘May 68’. For nearly two months, millions of people joined in a series of occupations, demonstrations, and general strikes nationwide that brought the country to a halt. The protests ignited an artistic movement that embraced the independent spirit of radicals, rebels, and renegades.
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Swiss artist Olivier Mosset was living in Paris at the time and became close with group of bikers who maintained an outlaw lifestyle. When he bought his first motorcycle, a US Army surplus Harley Davidson, he helped start a motorcycle club, a phenomenon wholly unknown in Europe at the time.
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Mosset’s studio on the Rue de Lappe doubled up as a hub of radical painting, a garage and a clubhouse for the Marxist-influenced bikers. As a painter, Mosset created monochromatic, geometric abstractions that conceptually reduced the image to its formal roots – and yet he couldn’t deny the allure of the motorcycle. Throughout his career, Mosset found inspiration in its mechanical form, pairing his paintings with sculptural readymades in the mid-90s.
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On June 8, Edition Patrick Frey will release Wheels, a retrospective of Mosset’s motorcycle work. Here Mosset looks back on enduring appeal of these icons of outlaw style.
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Read the Full Story at AnOther Man
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Taken from Wheels by Olivier Mosset © Olivier Mosset, courtesy of Edition Patrick Frey