Ata Bozacı

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Ata Bozacı, 2017

Ata Bozacı , artist name Toast (born March 3, 1974 in Burgdorf BE ) is a Swiss graphic designer , illustrator and artist. His works include drawings, paintings, digital graphics, large format wall designs, and modular sculptures. From 1990 to 2012 his work was mainly devoted to graffiti writing. In his more recent, digital works, the focus is on people.

life and work

Bozacı grew up in a Turkish working-class family. His talent for drawing was already noticed in elementary school. From 1990 to 1991 he attended the preliminary course at the Kunstgewerbeschule (preparatory course in art and design). From 1992 to 1996 he completed the graphics class at the Bern School of Design. As part of his diploma thesis, he created the first sprayed comic. His endeavors to combine graffiti with graphics almost cost him his studies. In 1992, he was a group exhibition with HR Giger at the Art Frankfurt invited. During Bozacı's internship at Springer & Jacoby in Hamburg, a close friendship developed with Mirko Reisser DAIM / getting-up . In 2001, together with other artists, they realized the 2000 m² graffito opposite the Landungsbrücken at the Port of Hamburg on the outer wall of Dock 10 of the Blohm + Voss shipyard , entitled “The new Hamburg and its twin cities”. In 1995 he designed the album cover “Auf ein Augen blöd” for the hip-hop band Fettes Brot . Graphics orders for the Bern club and cultural scene followed, including the collaboration with the cult magazine "SODA". In 2007, Bozacı received its own color from the aerosol can manufacturer “Molotow” called “TOAST signal black”.

At the age of 22, Bozacı completed his training as a qualified graphic designer and started his own business in Bern . In cooperation with the graphic agency “ Büro Destruct ” 15 skateboard designs were created for Intersport .

Artistic career

In the late 1990s, Bozacı founded the company "Atalier Visual Entertainment" with his business partners Remy Burger and Patric Geissbühler, which focused on illustrative online games. It became the most successful company in the industry. Her customers included Die Mobiliar , the Swiss milk producers and the Swiss Post . In 2004 Atalier received the Bronze Award of the Swiss Dialog Marketing Prize. In 2007 Bozacı left Atalier to work exclusively as an artist.

Together with the Basel graffiti writer Dare , he was invited in 2008 by the art collector Gunter Sachs to design his apartment in the Schlosshotel Velden . Under the title “Point of View”, the artists painted six cross-room pictures that only come together from a few points to form an overall picture. The artwork was fully featured in Architectural Digest (AD) magazine . For the special exhibition “Art is Female” about the life and work of Gunter Sachs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig, Bozacı made a large steel picture. In 2008 the collaboration with the Galerie Springmann from Freiburg began. There followed group exhibitions with Dare , Stefan Strumbel and street art pioneer Blek le Rat . The two works "Satan in Heaven" and "Black devil" came under the hammer in 2012 at the Sotheby’s auction house in London. In 2014, two more works by Bozacı from the Gunter Sachs collection were auctioned at Karl & Faber in Munich.

Point of view, apartment in the Schlosshotel Velden, 2007

Private life

Bozacı traveled all over Europe from an early age. The contact with the American street artist "Dave Persue" enabled him to work for the Osiris skateboard company in San Diego . With the rock band “disidente” he traveled across Mexico. Two months in Cuba and several educational trips to Australia, China, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore followed.

Bozacı lives with his wife and daughter in Zurich - Küsnacht .

Works

graffiti

Color injection, 1992
Toast poppy, 2011

Bozacı's works, which were created between 1990 and 1996, were characterized by cartoon-like characters. Although he had started with spraying lettering, Bozacı was long considered one of the most important sprayers of graffiti figures. Leaving unmistakable traces with the simplest means became his trademark. In the mid-1990s, he expanded his artistic work to include 3D graffiti writing.

Letter architecture

Black devil, 2003

The series “Letters Architecture” accompanied his work from 1996 to 2008. The perspective representation, the accessibility and completion of the letters in space characterize these works.

Modular sculptures

Writing the letters intuitively in space, a typical characteristic of graffiti writing, was adapted by Bozacı. Various basic shapes such as a square, triangle and circle served as building blocks for his writing sculptures. They are large, multi-part structures that could also be models for futuristic houses. “For me, graffiti and architecture are very close to each other. That is why this step towards tangible objects is only logical. ”The plug-in sculpture“ MLS Modular Letter System ”was shown in 2011 at the exhibition“ The First Beijing International Design Triennial ”in the Chinese National Museum.

Hype balloon

Hype Balloon, 2012

In 2011 Bozacı designed a large balloon sculpture. The word HYPE is constantly inflated and collapses again. During the Graphic 12 exhibition , Bozacı staged the balloon with a performance: disguised as a graffiti sprayer, he sprayed his own work and was then taken away by police officers.

Linear and digital portraits

The Boxer, 2013
Mila, 2017

Bozacı started boxing in the early 2000s. This experience resulted in the 2013 solo exhibition “Linear Boxing” in “The Trace Gallery” in Zurich.

From this time onwards, Bozacı's work became more socially critical. His attitude towards social media became visible in the traveling exhibition “Fifteen Seconds of Fame” 2015. Using digital technology, he transformed the Facebook profiles of his friends into iconic portraits. The faces are based on circular shapes. Bozacı sees the perfection of the circle as a symbol of today's beauty craze, and Facebook as the ideal venue for vanity and narcissism . When looking at the portraits up close, only graphic shapes can be seen. If you extend the distance, an almost photo-realistic image is created. As a result, Bozacı also manually painted the digital portraits as murals, including the portrait of the Turkish writer Enis Batur . The five meter high picture was created together with the “RAWCUT Design Studio” and students at the Bomonti Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul .

Bozacı's currently largest mural can be seen in Shenzhen , China. In 2016 he was invited to create an open-air gallery that is intended to enhance an entire city district. The 27 meter high work of art shows a colorful baby hanging on a smartphone.

Online, Jardin Orange Shenzhen, 2016

In 2017, in collaboration with Microsoft , he created a draft for the design of the Swissmill Tower in Zurich. The work "Naked Swimming" depicts the mother-child relationship. Both the silo itself and the design sparked controversy.

Art in architecture (selection)

  • 2018: Immersion, mural, IDM vocational training center, Thun, Switzerland
  • 2017: Night swimming, mural, Swissmill Tower, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 2016: Online, Mural, Jardin Orange, Shenzhen, China
  • 2014: Amanda, wall painting, STAMP Festival, Hamburg
  • 2014: David, mural, Naestved, Denmark
  • 2014: Michele, mural, Marrakech, Morocco
  • 2013: Enis Batur, mural, Bomonti Mimar Sinan University , Istanbul, Turkey
  • 2012: Loosing. Eyes open, FAKT, mural, market hall, Basel, Switzerland
  • 2010: Flying hearts, mural, Dafen Art Museum , Shenzhen, China
  • 2008: The Three Muses, interior design, Maendler Modehaus, Munich, Germany
  • 2007: Point of view, interior design, Schlosshotel Velden , Austria
  • 2007: Writing & drawing, interior design, Kamper, Graz, Austria
  • 2005: Wall painting, Federal Garden Show , Munich
  • 2000: Sky, interior design, Kerquelen Shoe Store, West Broadway, New York, USA
  • 2000: The new Hamburg and its twin cities, mural, Blohm + Voss , Hamburg
  • 1997: Multimedia wall, wall painting, Sprinkenhof GmbH , Hamburg

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions (selection)

  • 2019: Lucubratio, private, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 2018: Lucubratio, private, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 2015: Fifteen Seconds of Fame, The Trace Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 2015: Fifteen seconds of Fame, Artstübli, Basel, Switzerland
  • 2013: Linear Boxing, The Trace Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 2011: Unexpected Playground, retrospective, The Essential Collection, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 2006: Toast, ArtCorner28, Biel, Switzerland
  • 2004: Toast, Discount Office, Zurich, Switzerland

Performances

  • 2016: Crash test dummies, Volvo Art Session, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 2015: Speed ​​of the city, with Pius Portmann and Harun Dogan, Volvo Art Session, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 2012: Don't believe the hype, graphic 12, Zurich, Switzerland

Album covers, video clips

literature

Web links

Commons : Ata Bozacı  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bozacı Studio
  2. ↑ Hamburg and the world as a giant painting in the harbor. In: The world . May 4, 2001, p. 48.
  3. Jump up ↑ Dock 10 - The new gem in the port. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . No. 85 of April 10, 2001, p. 13.
  4. ↑ Dock 10, Part two of the world record painting. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . No. 86 of April 11, 2001, p. 15.
  5. ↑ Alain Lain Schibli: Interview in: Amateur Magazine, 2012 (English)
  6. ↑ Matthias Raaflaub: From Bern graffiti to Zurich art. In: Der Bund , February 1, 2010
  7. ↑ Matthias Raaflaub: From Bern graffiti to Zurich art . In: Der Bund, Der Bund . 2010, ISSN  0774-6156 ( derbund.ch [accessed on June 13, 2018]).
  8. ^ Stefan Altorfer-Ong: Black Ink / Illustrations by Ata «Toast» Bozacı, Publikat Verlag, ISBN 978-3-939566-06-9
  9. ↑ Yann Cherix: Art from the Cocoon. In: Tages-Anzeiger , March 1, 2012
  10. ↑ a b Xymna Engel: Six questions for Ata Bozaci. In: The Bund . March 19, 2015, accessed October 8, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Ata Bozaci: Fifteen Seconds of Fame
  12. ↑ rgl: Art in XXL format, made in Switzerland. In: 20 Minuten Tilllate , July 14, 2016.
  13. ↑ lop / hoh: Naked mom is supposed to beautify the Swissmill Tower. In: Tages-Anzeiger , June 30, 2017
  14. ↑ Clarissa Rohrbach: Concrete block remains an "eyesore" . In: Tagblatt der Stadt Zürich , July 11, 2017
  15. ↑ Volvo Art Session 2016 - Show youtube
  16. ↑ Volvo Art Session 2015 ATA BOZACI, PIUS PORTMANN & SHARK youtube
personal data
SURNAME Bozacı, Ata
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bozaci, Ata; Toast (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss-Turkish graphic designer, illustrator and artist
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH Burgdorf BE