Omer Fast (; born in Jerusalem, 1972) is an Israeli contemporary artist.
Early life and education
Born and raised in
Jerusalem, Fast spent much of his teenage years in New York.
[Blake Gopnik (October 2, 2013), The Art of Work, Hard-Core Edition New York Times.] He received his BFA from a dual-degree program at
Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1995, majoring in English and
painting,
[Barbara Pollack (February 1, 2011), True Lies? ARTnews.] and an MFA from
Hunter College in 2000.
[ Hunter College Department of Art ] He subsequently got a job doing magazine layout before moving to Berlin in 2001.
[Blake Gopnik (October 2, 2013), The Art of Work, Hard-Core Edition New York Times.]
Exhibitions
Fast has had
at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2020), Guangdong Times Art Museum (2018), Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (2016), Jeu de Paume, Paris (2015), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2012), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2010), Berkeley Art Museum (2009),
mumok, Vienna (2007), Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh (2005), Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis (2005), Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2004), and the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2003). His work has also been featured in
Documenta (2012), Performa (2009), and the 54th Venice Biennale. In 2016 the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin presented the exhibition "Omer Fast. Talking is not always the solution". His work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally. In October 2015, a monographic exhibition of Fast’s work titled
Present Continuous opened at the Jeu de Paume, Paris, and subsequently travelled to the Baltic Center of Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, and the KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg, Denmark. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Le Caixa, Madrid, Spain; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montréal, Canada; Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow, Poland; STUK Leuven, Belgium; Dallas Museum of Art, TX; Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; the Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. His work was featured in dOCUMENTA (13), the 54th Venice Biennale, and the 2002 and 2008 Whitney Biennials. He received a BFA from Tufts University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and an MFA from Hunter College in New York City. Fast lives and works in Berlin.
Feature films
Fast wrote and directed his debut feature film
Remainder in 2015, based on the 2005 novel of the same name by Tom McCarthy. It stars
Tom Sturridge and
Cush Jumbo.
Lorena Muñoz-Alonso of
Artnet compared Fast's avant-garde style to that of Steve McQueen and Sam Taylor-Johnson, urging audiences to not "expect an easily consumable feature."
Fast had said that he was inspired to make the film after being introduced to the book by a journalist colleague.
The film was generally well received by critics.
Awards and collections
Fast was the recipient of the 2009 Preis der Nationalgalerie für Junge Kunst and the 2008
Bucksbaum Award from the Whitney Museum of American Art. Fast's work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Hamburger Bahnhof, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the
mumok, Vienna.
Bibliography
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Sabine Schaschl (ed.): "Omer Fast. In Memorry / Zur Erinnerung", Berlin (The Green Box) 2010. (English/German)
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“The Casting” (Monograph) Published by Museum of Modern Art, Vienna and Walter König Verlag, 2008
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Astrid Wege, "Cologne, Omer Fast, Kölnischer Kunstverein", Artforum, Feb 2012
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Barbara Pollack, "True Lies?", ART News,February 2010
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Andreas Schlaegel, "Nothing But the Truth", Programma Magazine, Spring 2010
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Mark Godfrey, TJ Demos, Eyal Weizman, Ayesha Hammed, "Rights of Passage", Tate Etc., Issue # 19, 2010
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Nav Haq, "Foresight into the New African Century", Kaleidoscope #5, Feb 2010
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Holland Cotter, "Is It Reality or Fantasy?" New York Times, January 7, 2010 [5]
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Elisabeth Lebovici / Maria Muhle, Omer Fast, Afterall, March 2009
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Chen Tamir, "Omer fast, New Magic Realism", Flash Art, Issue #114, October 2008
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Tom Holert, "Attention Span", Artforum, February 2008
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Mark Godfrey, "Making History", Frieze, March/April 2006
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Nav Haq, "Omer Fast, Godville", Bidoun, 2005 [6]
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Jennifer Allen, "Openings: Omer Fast", Artforum, September 2003 [7]
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Chris Chang, "Vision: Omer Fast", Film Comment, July/August 2003 [8]
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Marcus Verhagen, ‘Pleasure and Pain: Omer Fast Interviewed’ in Art Monthly Issue 330, October 2009 Brittania Art Publications LTD. Pp 1-4
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"Omer Fast: Back to the Present" in Displayer. February 2009. pp 113-118
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Omer Fast et al., The Death of the Artist (New York: Cabinet Magazine, 2019).
External links
