Omer Fast

Omer Fast was born in Jerusalem in 1972.

He left Israel as a teenager with his family to move to New York. This geographical and cultural change helps to better understand his work and some of the recurring elements in his artistic practice: the comprehension of a foreign society and the importance of assimilating its language. He received his BA from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (1995) and his MFA from Hunter College in New York (2000). He currently lives and works in Berlin.

Omer Fast builds his “stories” from existing ones (film, television) that he analyzes and deconstructs in order to expose the complex structures or codes that form them. Every cultural reference, pop or elitist, serves as a pretext to create new stories with multiple readings. In Fast’s work, personal stories are often mixed with, or integrated into, public narration. He examines the relationship between modes of mass expression and art. He explores the medium of film and the variety of emotions that can be produced by combining its elements. He plays with images and sound to create new meanings, manipulating them to the point of the absurd. But beyond the analyses and the manipulation, there is a will to restore the complex and paradoxical place of individuals in their environment as they attempt to define their existence.

I He has had many solo exhibitions in which the following works were presented: Glendive Foley (2000); Berlin-Hura (2002); CNN Concatenated (2002); A Tank Translated (2002); Spielberg’s List (2003); and more recently Godville (2004). He has also participated in many collective exhibitions in Europe and North America: Affinités Narratives, gb agency, Paris (2001); Contemporary Art/Recent Acquisitions, Jewish Museum, New York (2003); Prague Biennale ‘A Second Sight’ (2005); Why Pictures Now: New Media Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, Salzburg (2006).