byĆ

Być, a Swiss artist born in Lausanne in 1982, did not choose this pseudonym at random: in Poland, the homeland of one of his grandfathers, this word means "to be" or "to search".

Indeed, in all of his artistic approach, there is an undeniable existential quest, begun in early childhood. A time when he drew and painted everything, all of the time, required paper after paper, again and again... Back then, we could have believed this to be a fleeting whim, but it was nothing of the sort; drawing, painting, caricature, they are his fundamental means of expression, one could even say vital.



Early graphic design graduate at 18 years old, he immersed himself in the world of advertising, earning a good living due to his quick ascension to an international level. However, he also saw the limits, in both the artistic and ethical senses. Być voluntarily withdrew from the advertising scene after several years to entirely devote himself to his artistic research, which he had never abandoned in parallel to his career.



He leaves his comfort zone (his academic training) and for more than a year, 7 days a week, from morning to evening, he uses the graffiti technique to push himself in his methodologies and media choices. By giving up his previous career, he also gives up the easy way: he must solve material problems (premises, painting, supports, must be the least expensive possible). Then, he leaves for the United States, to Taos, and decides to face the vast desert spaces, embraces the culture shock, and shakes himself up all over again. He is fascinated by recycled materials, and turns these new constraints of abandoned desert objects into elements of his message. Everything makes sense. The support itself inspires him, and dictates the work.



For Być, there is a kind of complicit association between the used object, whose poetry he perceives from the previous use, and what it inspires him. Thus is defined his vision of contemporary art and Street Art, which goes from the street to the greatest museums, which challenges codes, challenges the world, sometimes mocks, often denounces, or admires. For Być, to provoke is to create thoughts, to mix and connect people, times, styles and perceptions.

For me, he says, "a good work grows with you", he hopes for multiple, evolving and "nourishing" interpretations.

His first contact with a gallery owner was immediately successful when he was exhibited at the Scope Miami 2017. Its buyers are major international collectors. He has since exhibited at Art Miami, Art Wynwood, Frame Basel, Kunst Zürich, Santa Fe, Taos, Montreux.

In the summer of 2019, he exhibited in Geneva alongside Banksy, Pimax and M.CHAT at the Summer Street Art festival organised by the Galerie Bel-Air Fine Art, in Paris as part of the 8e Avenue and Art Elysées, as well as at Kunz Zürich.

For Być, "to be" means to constantly seek to say, to show, to share, as did the painters he admires have done before him: from Toulouse-Lautrec to Blek the Rat, via Hokusai and Norman Rockwell, Basquiat, Warhol and all those whose lines and paintings have often been able to describe their world with tenderness, cruelty sometimes, and without complacency. To hyper-consumption, he opposes recycling', to intolerance, he imposes humour or emotion, to ugliness and wear and tear, the proposition of another life. He wants to be free and does not care about people who think he is old when he is young or a woman when he is a man. He is Być.