Gen Atem

Gen Atem (born Anton Wettstein; 1967) is a visual and performance artist, musician, writer, and Zen-master. He lives and works in Herbetswil, Switzerland.

Life and career Atem was born in Frauenfeld, Switzerland in 1967.

Gen Atem began painting on subway cars and walls in 1982 and is regarded as one of the pioneers of Europe's street art movement. He studied and graduated graphic design at the School of Visual Arts Zurich (today Zurich University of the Arts). From 1986 to 1994, he mainly lived in New York City, working as an artist. From 1994 to 2001, he studied Buddhist philosophy, practiced Buddhist meditation, and was ordained a Zen priest in 1999. Gen Atem is married to the artist and graphic designer Miriam Bossard. Since 2009 he is part of the artist duo Gen Atem / Miriam Bossard and their graphic design studio Bossard Wettstein GmbH in Herbetswil, Switzerland.

Since autumn 2025, Gen Atem (Anton Wettstein) has been the Vice Mayor of Herbetswil.

Work Gen Atem's work includes political graffiti and color attacks in public space, illegal works on subway cars and buildings, freely improvised painting actions, sculptures, paintings, art performances, musical compositions, and literature. His visual art works have been exhibited in museums and galleries in New York City, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich, Bregenz, Istanbul, and Tokyo. Using fist-sized pieces of coal, he wrote 3–5 meter tall letters in a circle around a building, forming the sentence loop “…always further to the right and always further to the right and…”. In doing so, he addressed and criticized political movements that are increasingly shifting to the right. Miriam Bossard, on the other hand, took on the role of the denier of history: she continuously wiped away the writing and attempted to erase this history by pouring buckets of water over it. Finally, a forensic expert secured traces of the remaining coal dust. From this dust, Gen Atem and Miriam Bossard created a paint emulsion, with which they painted a large black dot on a column of the Historical Museum at the UNESCO World Heritage site “Völklinger Ironworks.” The dot serves as a lasting memorial: it symbolizes the missing period in the endless sentence loop and is meant to put an end to the rightward drift. The art action was documented in the book Always Right, with the foreword written by Swiss Councilor Franziska Roth.

Commissioned by Dieter Kägi, Gen Atem conceived, choreographed and produced, together with the artist S213, a multi-media opera to the musical composition Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky in the version by Maurice Ravel. It was premiered on September 2, 2021 together with the Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kaspar Zehnder. While Mussorgsky’s composition was based on pictures by the artist Viktor Hartmann the two artists Gen Atem and S213 reversed the process and created a visual and multi-media work to the music of Mussorgsky. The result is a work that combines classical music and the various elements of Hip hop such as graffiti, scratching and breakdancing.

Political graffiti and paint bomb attacks During the period of riots after the Opernhauskrawalle in Zurich at the beginning of the 1980s, Gen Atem sprayed socially critical illustrations and graffiti in public space in Zurich, and carried out politically motivated color attacks on official buildings. Since then he has repeatedly applied the throwing of paint bombs in his artistic work.

Graffiti and street art In 1982, Gen Atem became aware of the hip-hop culture and began his activities as a breakdancer, DJ, and graffiti writer under the artist names Genius, Gen, Gen One, and Gen U One. From 1982 to 1992, he created over 800 works in public spaces in New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Basel, and Zurich. He not only used the spray can, but also experimented with paint rollers, paint bombs, powder pigments, and waste objects, which he integrated into his works with adhesive materials. He was the founder and leader of the graffiti crews "Wild Writers" and "Attacking Vandalism Criminals" (or simply AVC). Due to his activities as a graffiti writer, he was arrested several times.

Buddhist philosophy and meditation In 1994, Gen Atem and Rammellzee ended their collaboration. Gen Atem became more interested in Asian calligraphy and Buddhist philosophy, and retired to a Buddhist monastery in 1995. In 1999, he was ordained a monk and studied Buddhist philosophy of the Tibetan tradition under the guidance of the 14th Dalai Lama. Afterwards he studied and practiced under the guidance of the Vietnamese Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh in the Zen-monastery Plum Village in France.

Meditated Vandalism During his time in the monastery, Gen Atem created calligraphic drawings in small formats. Since 2007 he has been painting larger works again, which he presents internationally in museums and galleries. In his works he combines the various art forms and the philosophical aspects associated with them and calls them "Meditated Vandalism". In the monograph on Gen Atem, art historian Rémi Jaccard writes in his essay "On Meditated Vandalism": "...Like Jackson Pollock and Hermann Nitsch, Gen Atem also comprehends the act of painting as a ritual in which energy is discharged and conserved in the form of a painting. And as with Francis Picabia, the result – the shapeless spot – symbolizes the resistance against norms and conventions...". Gen Atem (vocals, vocoder) and Stephan Wittwer (guitar) played two concerts at Rote Fabrik Aktionshalle and at "The Sihlquai Club" in Zurich with Wittwer's band "Sludge 2/3000" and another concert at Moods Club with Wittwer's band "Das T.E.A.M." in 1995 and 1996. In 2012 and 2013, Gen Atem was the singer of the group "Die Grenzwelt" and had appearances at the "blank city calling" art festival, at the Club Exil and at the Club Zukunft in Zurich. His second studio solo album "Not Here" was released in 2014, the third solo album "Truth" in 2020, in 2022 on the label Sunticrecords.

Writing and teaching From 1990 to 1993, Gen Atem sporadically wrote art theoretical treatises in conjunction with sketches on the subject of "Ikonoklast Panzerism - Gothic Futurism" for the Zurich trend magazine Forecast. In 2015 and 2016, he published essays in the two books "Time Frame" and "Meditated Vandalism" in which he explains the commonality between Buddhist philosophy and his work as an artist. Art collection of the Canton of Zurich, University of Zurich, Switzerland: "Time Frame", five paintings on steel objects, acrylic and ink, approx. 7 by 7 feet each. MoE Museum of Emptiness, St. Gallen, Switzerland: "Form is Emptiness", wall painting, chalk and acrylic, 6.5 by 13 feet, 2017. Campus Attisholz, Solothurn, Switzerland: "Christoph Blocher", wall painting, acrylic, over 10000 square feet.

Bibliography (selection)

2018: Pretty Zeecity Retrospective, David Gartmann Verlag, 2018: Schmieren / Kleben (from the archive KKIII of the Zurich City Police), Edition Patrick Frey, 2016: Meditated Vandalism, Hatje Cantz Publishing, 2016: ZeeCity, Otmar Maag Migel und M.O.D.-Verlag, 2016: 101 Contemporary Artists, ArtVoices Art Books, 2015: Time Frame, Art Collection Canton Zurich, Bossard Wettstein Publishing, 2015: Abstract Vandalism, Unruly Publishing, 2012: One by One, Guangzhou Sendpoints Books, 2006: Die Vier Edlen Wahrheiten, Vier Jahreszeiten Verlag, 1999: Swiss Graffiti, Aragon Verlag, 1995: Anarchie und Aerosol, Aragon Verlag,

Discography Studio albums