In 2015 he was a selected artist at the ZKM | Globale where work from his current outer space series was shown in the groundbreaking exhibition Exo-Evolution curated by Peter Weibel. In 2011 he participated in the milestone exhibition Atlas – How to carry the world on one´s back, shown at the Museo Reina Sofía, the ZKM Museum for Contemporary Art and the Deichtorhallen / Phönixhallen Hamburg. In 2008, a large-scale, overview was presented at the Museum for Contemporary Art GEM in The Hague. His work formed part of the 2006 Venice Biennale’s 10th International Architecture Exhibition, the 9th Havana Biennale 2006 and the 2007 Convergence Biennale Beijing. Harald Szeemann exhibited his work in 2004 in The Beauty of Failure / The Failure of Beauty at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona. Najjar uses his own body as a performance medium – the artist as space (ad)venturer.įor the past 25 years Najjar´s work has been subject of prominent solo and group shows at international institutions. Such borderline experience informs his unique photo and video artworks. Once more, the artist will be exposing himself to extreme experiences and testing his mental and physical limits in highly complex technical environments. In his earlier series the artist climbed to the tops of skyscrapers, and scaled Mount Aconcagua, one of the highest mountains in the world in a perilous expedition lasting several weeks for his current space series he has now become one of Virgin Galactic´s Pioneer Astronauts and will soon be flying into space on board the privately owned SpaceShipTwo. The performative aspect of his artistic practice has shifted into sharper focus since the start of his outer space series. The variety of themes covered ranges from transformation of global megacities through compaction of information networks (netropolis, 2003 – 2006), depictions of the human body transformed by biogenetic intervention (bionic angel, 2006 – 2008) and virtualization of financial markets with smart algorithms (high altitude, 2008 – 2010) to the future of the human species through space exploration (outer space, since 2011). Najjar’s work is grouped in thematic series. Michael Najjar has the fascinating ability to transform complex high-tech issues into artworks which not only address the scientific issues but also the formal and aesthetic questions inherent in the technical image. They are a pure medium of reflection – in the double sense of the word. The monumental scale of Michael Najjar´s prints coupled with their enormous richness of detail envelops viewers, stimulating their visual senses and creating a truly immersive experience. In his digital composites layers of information coexist seamlessly while indexical reference to reality is relinquished in favor of an image of its own artistic value. His practice addresses the fundamental question of what reality means in an increasingly virtualized and simulated world. His work continually interrogates the relationship between reality and its representation in the technical image. He has expanded conventional ways of addressing the medium by pushing the traditional limits and reformating our understanding of photography. Working in distinct series, since the mid-nineties Najjar has embraced different genres of photography using a wide range of technological approaches. In his artistic practice he fuses art, science, and technology into visions of future social structures emerging under the impact of cutting-edge technologies.īorn in Landau, Germany, Najjar attended the Bildo Academy of Media Art in Berlin from 1988 – 1993, where he was trained in the practices of conceptual and interdisciplinary art.ĭuring this time he immersed himself in the visionary theories of media philosophers such as Vilém Flusser, Paul Virilio and Jean Baudrillard which have markedly influenced his later work. Najjar’s photographic and video works exemplify and draw on his interdisciplinary understanding of art. In his artwork Michael Najjar takes a complex critical look at the technological forces shaping and drastically transforming the early 21st century. Michael was born in 1966 and he lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
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