Thursday, October 23, 6pm | Omer Fast in person!
- Omer Fast, The Casting (2007). Image courtesy of the artist.
The provocative, whip-smart work of Berlin-based artist Omer Fast is garnering international acclaim, and with good reason. Showcasing an incisive eye, sharp technique and keen wit, Fast’s videos and installations of funeral directors, Colonial Williamsburg re-enactors, Schindler’s List extras, and Iraq war veterans stitch history, personal experience, and mass media conventions into intellectually dissonant, emotionally resonant narratives. In conjunction with his debut Chicago exhibition at SAIC’s Rymer Gallery, Fast will present his latest video, Take a Deep Breath (2008), as well as Looking Pretty For God (After GW) (co-commissioned by SAIC and the Manifesta Foundation, 2008), which draws parallels between mortuary services and a children’s commercial shoot, a single-channel version of The Casting (2007) in which a soldier’s professional and personal trauma underscores a series of tableaux vivants and for which he received the 2008 Whitney Biennial’s Bucksbaum Award, and excerpts from earlier works. Co-presented by SAIC’s Visiting Artists Program and the Department of Exhibitions and Events. 2003—2008, Omer Fast, various countries, multiple formats, ca 90 min.
Omer Fast was born in 1972 in Jerusalem. He lives and works in Berlin. He holds a BA/BFA from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and an MFA from Hunter of the City University of New York. Selected solo exhibitions in 2008 include the Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, the Hannover Kunstverein and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver. Upcoming exhibitions are planned at Tate Liverpool and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Omer Fast is the winner of this year’s Bucksbaum Award, the largest award given to an individual visual artist, presented to an artist who is shown in the Whitney Biennial.
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