gb agency

The point of departure for Omer Fast’s (*1972) exhibition project ABFAHRT is a radical self-portrait by Max Beckmann (1884 – 1950) created in 1917 and recently acquired by the museum. Never before or after did Beckmann document his temporary mental and physical decline after World War I in such an unsparing manner.

Omer Fast makes this void and drama – two parameters fundamental to his work – the topic of his response in film. We are certain to be unsettled by his intervention and to question, on which side of the drama we are situated. In an exemplary gesture, Omer Fast situates Beckmann’s world theater within a topical discourse on social questions that continue to touch us and make us wonder. The exhibition is the first in a trilogy to raise a dialog between major works by Max Beckmann in the museum collection and contemporary artists.