OMG IN HEAVEN

Joachim Bosse: I believe advertising is the easiest way to access and start a creative career. There is a problem that needs to be solved. And you can find the most original way to do so, at least within certain boundaries and sets of rules.

As an artist you are your own client and agenda. There is definitely a bigger challenge because you don't create to solve something; you create for the sake of creating. Which means the problem that needs to be solved lies within you, or in the way you see the world or want to see it.

In that sense, art in its true, non-art market form is never an economical action, even though, in the best-case scenario, there is an economical consequence. Meaning: The order in art and advertising is completely different. In advertising, you get money to create. In art, you create, and maybe you get money.

That's why, for me personally, artists are among the last badasses in capitalism. I respect everybody who is hustling to live their dream instead of compromising ideas half the way or trading big aspirations for financial stability and peace of mind. Even though I also respect that. In an ideal world, everybody should just be allowed to do what makes them happy.

JB: I always wanted to tell stories and create scenarios, talk-abouts, and works that seduce and invite people into reflecting, thinking, discussing, and most of all, feeling.

When I was growing up, I tried that by immersing myself in rapping, graffiti-writing, skateboarding, and literature. Hip-hop culture used to be more punk and anti-establishment, as well as more political. It was a lot about creating a vibe through music and art. Or at least what we used to think of as art.

When I founded my advertising company DOJO with a friend 16 years ago, we were young and felt this unstoppable energy to create an antagonistic player against big corporate culture-driven agencies. I think, with a lot of luck, we were able to do that. I would call DOJO, my agency, my first piece of art, a long-term art performance of rebellious behavior in the corporate world.

My first artwork, DOJO, is now complete, and I am happy to move on and grow as a creative person. Daring to be my own client and trusting in the agenda I want to set. It´s definitely easier to crash a system like advertising than to add really new ways to a system like art that is built on the most individualistic people society has to offer. And also regarding all the great things that happened in modern and contemporary art.

Even though it feels like everything has been done, felt, executed, and thought about, I still believe there are ways to add to this incredible legacy of innovation and rebellion. That's what I'm interested in. I am looking forward to that challenge. 

Then again, and maybe most importantly, in my opinion, the label artist is nothing you can give to yourself. You have to earn it; only time and people will be able to tell if you are an artist or not.

JB: Andy Warhol was a great character in art, that's for sure. But I really also love Maurizio Cattelan, Jeff Koons, Marina Abramović, Chris Burden, Banksy, Martin Kippenberger, and so many more.

Basically, everyone who brought fresh blood to the general body of art. All the bad seeds, all the punks, and all the new thinkers.

But yes, for me, coming from advertising, the period of pop art is definitely close to my heart.

JB: Mark Zuckerberg is definitely an icon to me because he is larger than life, more of a symbol of our time, and he created a new world with just as many challenges and bad parts as any other world has and just as many interesting aspects and possibilities. And I think everything is still at the very beginning.

That's why OMG was my first artwork ever. Until today, it felt like my firstborn, whom I have a very close and special relationship with. 

I remember carrying around the idea for this sculpture for two years, not knowing how to bring it to life. Since it feels like a modern icon to me, representing today's society oscillating between the remains of analogue reality and searching for a new belief, purpose, and belonging in a realm of digital uncertainty, I was scared and nervous someone else would come up with the idea as well, being able to produce it before me. 

When I finally was able to carve the face and body, to fully create and release it, I was blown away by the world-wide recognition as an artist and coverage by international media outlets such as hypebeast and HIGHSNOBIETY followed up by exhibitions and AR-experiences.

I even built an installation called "Chuch of Data" with a life-sized OMG sculpture where people could stay, rest, and never leave the holy space of online community again. 

That’s why today I’m proud to be able to release my first fine art print ever with the first artwork I started my career with. It feels like a new beginning, and I’m proud to share it today.

JB: OMGGGGGGGGG.

JB: I'm afraid there is a tendency going in that direction, which I really dislike.

In general, I am skeptical when it comes to religion, whereas I am a full supporter of other faiths.

To me, art is something that comes from deep within, such as faith. Whereas religion feels to me like more of an external thing, such as social media.

I think things become interesting when social media is a place to publish products of your faith, like art, because it gives young artists a way to get recognition. 

The moment you become obsessed with it, I'm afraid it has the same potential problems religion can bring if misused or lived dangerously or obsessively. It drives you away from faith and expressing yourself truly into a state of trying to belong. That's a sad phenomenon to witness. 

Then again, one love, and may everybody be allowed to believe in whatever they want. That is the most important thing.

JB: For me personally, art has no job except for being art and pleasing you as an artist. 

Art just needs to be, not to do. 

Nevertheless, I also think that art can only be art in the context of time, place, and society. 

That's why so many artists are only recognized in retrospectives. Important art, to me, almost feels like a Zeitgeist souvenir, which a lot of the time is hard to rate in the same period it was produced in. 

After all there is a correlation between the artist, the art and the viewers. That should be the holy triangle of happiness. The art market should rather be a tool to that triangle not setting the rules. In my recent „For Sale“ show curated by Anika Meier, I was working on this specific subject.

As for me personally, I don't produce art to make people think. Making people think is my art. Almost the same, but still a different order of intentionality. 

I look at myself as a curator of pop culture phenomena, isolating and recontextualizing parts of reality, trying to tickle public perception and invite people to access a different part of their mindsets. I like to seduce, not simply state. The beginning of a story is always the most interesting part because it can go in any direction. I like this tension.

JB: I hope it remains only a part of our reality instead of becoming our full perception of reality. Sometimes I feel that is the way we are headed right now. And that would be, well, OMG.