Omer Fast

Omer Fast (born in Jerusalem 1972) is a contemporary artist.

Early life and education
Born and raised in Jerusalem, Fast spent much of his teenage years in New York. 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, and an MFA from Hunter College in 2000. He subsequently got a job doing magazine layout before moving to Berlin in 2001.

Exhibitions
Fast has had solo exhibitions 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), Museum of Modern Art, 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 (13) (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 Sturrdige 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 Museum of Modern Art, Vienna.