Omer Fast
14 May - 22 July 2011
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| © Omer Fast, Nostalgia, 2009. Courtesy ArratiaBeer, Berlin |
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OMER FAST
14 May - 23 July 2011
The first solo exhibition of works by Omer Fast in the Netherlands is
comprised of three complex installations. These are the three-part work
Nostalgia (2009), with which Fast won the Preis der National-galerie für
Junge Kunst in Berlin, the 4-channel work The Casting (2007), that won
him the Whitney Museum’s Bucksbaum Award in 2008, and De Grote Boodschap
(2007), produced for the Contour video biënnale in Mechelen. In the
show Fast demonstrates his fascination with narrative and cinematic
constructions, and different forms of documentary and re-enactment.
Omer Fast writes his own scripts and directs and edits his own films.
Working with film, video and television material, he looks at how
individual and collective histories interact with each other in
narrative. The interview functions as a very important form for this,
both in terms of construction and as a starting point. Fast repeatedly
works with witnesses and their testimonies. Because in their accounts
individuals ‘re-enact’ what happened to them, they experience and
interpret the events anew. It is precisely at those moments that memory
is processed again. Thus Fast is not responding directly to reality, but
working with representations and narratives. There is a truth in the
telling of personal stories which interests the artist, but he often
plays with it to create ambi-guous or self-critical works. In this
manner, video and film can not be simply considered as an open ‘factual
medium’, but generate space for reflection.
Thematically Omer Fast’s works often articulate the complex
relationships between people from different cultures, at moments of
tension and interdependence. He is drawn to current topics such as
immigration, political refugees, war and community relations as points
of departure for his narratives. At the same time Fast provides insight
into how the mechanisms of filmmaking and storytelling often influence
these narratives and the truth value we attach to them.
Omer Fast’s recent solo exhibitions include the Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York, the South London Gallery, England, the Kunsthaus
Baselland, Switzerland, and the Berkeley Art Museum in California. His
work was also to be seen in group exhibitions at the Barbican Art
Gallery, England, and in the Liverpool Biennial, England, Manifesta 7,
Italy, the Whitney Biennial, NY, Performa Festival, NY, and the Centre
Pompidou, France. Presently the artist is working on his first feature
film.
The exhibition is made possible with the help of: ifa Institut für
Auslandsbeziehungen e.V., Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, SNS Reaal Fonds,
Goethe Institut, Embassy of Israel
www.montevideo.nl
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