Omer Fast, Still from August (2016), All images via Martin-Gropius-Bau.

Now through March 12th, the Martin-Gropius Bau presents the first large solo exhibition of the work of Omer Fast, compiling seven of the artist’s projects from the course of his career, including CNN Concatenated (2000), Looking Pretty for God (after G.W.) (2008), 5000 Feet is the Best (2011), Continuity (2012), Everything that Rises Must Converge (2013), Spring (2016), and a new piece entitled August (2016).  Fast’s art straddles the border between fiction and fact, probing the concept of reality created by one’s own personal narratives versus that created by media or collective narratives, often allowing the two poles to co-mingle and blur together. (more…)

Omer Fast, 5,000 Feet is the Best (film still) (2011)

Offering a cinematic experience comprised of particularly constructed viewing rooms, Omer Fast’s inaugural exhibition at James Cohan saw the premier of the artist’s three most recent films for a New York audience. On view through this past weekend, the exhibition, which challenged the typical context of the theater, complicates notions of script and reality as well as of documentary and fiction.   (more…)

Fridericianum in Kassel via dOCUMENTA

Every five years, the city of Kassel in Germany plays host to dOCUMENTA, a colossal, 100-day long exhibition of contemporary art from all over the world.  Participating artists are provided at least two years to complete their work and the results are thus consistently thorough and complex.  This year is dOCUMENTA’s thirteenth edition and is expected to attract more than 750,000 visitors, nearly twice that of last year’s Venice Biennale.

Yan Lei‘s  “Limited Art Project”, a room of works completed daily over the past year.  The room and the art hung on its walls will be sprayed over with car paint, retransforming every piece into a blank canvas.  This image is featured on BBC News’ Big Picture series.

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Omer Fast, 5000 Feet is the Best (2011). Digital film still, via The Model

On view at The Model in Sligo, Ireland through November 27th is “The Tunnel,” a large-scale installation and major solo exhibition of Israeli video artist Omer Fast. Three installations occupy The Model’s atrium and gallery space including a two part version of his newest film project, 5000 Feet is the Best, which was commissioned by The Model, Dublin Contemporary 2011, the Hermes Foundation, and the Kadist Foundation. 5000 Feet is the Best will be presented as a unique version specific to The Model, including both the original film and multi-media installation components. Fast is known for his films that weave together multiple narratives using documentary and dramatization methods to explore the complexity in presenting truth, leading the viewer to the realization that fact and fiction are undeniably intertwined.

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Omer Fast from “De Grote Boodschap” (2007), via NIMK.

American trained, Israeli born artist Omer Fast is currently showing three installation pieces for which he has become known; “Nostalgia” (2009), “The Casting” (2007), and “De Grote Boodschap” (2007), all at the Netherlands Media Art Institute.  All three works show Fast’s interest in the cinematic construction of narrative via documentary and film reenactment.

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Omer Fast Talk Show, 2010. With actress Lili Taylor. All images: A Performa Commission co-produced by Artis Contemporary Israeli Art Fund, Edith Russ House for Media Arts, Oldenburg and Goethe Institute. Photo by Olimpia Dior. Courtesy of the Artist and Arratia, Beer, Berlin.

Currently on view at Arratia Beer is a new video piece entitled Talk Show by Omer Fast. The work was originally recorded in front of a live audience as part of Performa in 2009, and continues Fast’s interest in the liminal space between fact and fiction as mediated by film. Set in a theatrical, talk show like setting, the film records Lisa Ramaci relating her personal story about the Iraq war to actress Rosie Perez, who was hearing the account for the first time. When Ramaci finishes her story, Perez re-tells the story to another performer. This process of re-telling is repeated for a total of six renditions, and, much like the childhood game of Telephone that the work is inspired by, results in many factual errors and even becomes comedic.

Omer Fast Talk Show, 2010. Courtesy of the Artist and Arratia, Beer, Berlin.

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Omer Fast’s Nostalgia III, 2009 – production still super 16mm film transferred to HD video running time: 32:48 minutes via Whitney Museum of American Art

Now on view at Postmasters Gallery and Whitney Museum of American Art are concurrent exhibitions by the iconoclastic video artist Omer Fast, known for his non-sequential cut ups of tragedy and humanity. Splicing disjunctive narratives of traumatized subjects – actual, staged or imitated – Fast’s dystopian imaginings shun aesthetic formality and evoke what truth lies in the ambiguity of storytelling. As highly interpretive mash ups collapsing space and time, his films recall the intimacy of reality and fantasy through mingling documentary and fictional styles.

Omer Fast’s Take a Deep Breath, 2008 – production still two channel HD video running time: 27:07 minutes

Chronicling the plight of the refugee, Omer Fast’s Nostalgia, showing at Whitney Museum of American Art, pinpoints feelings of longing and dislocation in a labyrinthian network of disparate ethnic voices. Tracing themes of displacement, war and loss through the recurrent motif of an animal trap, jumbled bits of dialogue and streams of overlaid images, Fast explores different permutations of cross-cultural encounters.

More images, text and related links after the jump… (more…)

Image via tfaoi.com

On November 16th the 2008 Biennial Artists were announced. The curatorial team stressed a broader take on the American Art scene, moving away from the post-punk sway exhibited in 2006. This expansion primarily pertains to the genres and mediums covered within the biennial, not the physical number of artists, as there were 100 artists selected in 2006 compared with 81 for 2008’s Biennial. Also unique to the upcoming show, is the use of the Armory space on Park and 67th, primarily for perfomance and interactive exhibitions.
Headliners include John Baldessari, Robert Bechtle, Mary Heilmann, Michael Smith and Sherrie Levine.

ArtNews
Whitney.org
NYTimes
Full list of artists after the jump. (more…)