Red Star 1990

Olivier Mosset made this ‘Red Star’ painting, and you can see right away he's diving into color and form headfirst, making it all about the act of painting itself. Up close, it's impossible not to notice that vivid red against the stark white, they almost vibrate. There's a flatness to it, almost like it's been printed, yet you can sense the hand of the artist, a kind of ghost in the machine. It reminds me of those clean-cut minimalist paintings from the '60s, but with an edge, like it's asking, "What does it all mean?". Notice how the points of the star are just a little off, like perfection wasn't the goal. Mosset’s playing with ideas that were circulating in the art world at the time, like a visual conversation with the likes of Stella or Reinhardt. It makes you realize art's a constant back-and-forth, where meanings shift and nothing's ever really nailed down.