Michael Najjar
Michael Najjar ( born October 31, 1966 in Landau ) is a German photo artist.
Life
Michael Najjar was born on 31 October 1966 in Landau. He lives and works in Berlin since 1988.
From 1988 to 1993 he studied at the Bildo Academy for Art and Media in Berlin, the first private art school in Germany. Najjar studied the experimental and interdisciplinary work with photography, video and computer. He was also the first time in contact with the cultural theorists Jean Beaudrillard, Vilém Flusser and Paul Virilio, which should later have a strong influence on his work. Working visits to Brazil, Cuba, Spain, England, Japan and the United States dominate the global nature of his work. Najjar works are mostly owned by museums and private collections. In 2008 he received at the age of 41 years, his first comprehensive museum exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art GEM and the Fotomuseum Den Haag. Since 2007, he is married to the doctorate art historian and gallery Sherin Najjar (born Hamed ).
General information about the work
Michael Najjar works with photography and video. The focus is on the main components of a computer controlled and information technology company. Najjar, who is regarded as visual futurist, condensed science, history and philosophy in visions and utopias of future social structures, which develop under the influence of new technologies. The combination of realistic elements with fictitious realities is a recurrent feature of his works, which are summarized in thematically focused work groups. Najjar shows off the media immanent possibilities of the photographic image, he makes things visible that often remains hidden to the human eye. His works bring to light what is hidden under the surface of the data-based telematic society. They can be seen since 1998 in many national and international exhibitions.
His work group netropolis (2003-2006) focuses on the future urban development of our cities. Najjar has risen to the highest of building for this series in 12 megacities. The digital fusion of different panoramatic viewing directions transforms the urban landscape into an abstract, palimpsestartiges relationships. The pictures show the infinite ocean of information, an omnipresent all-pervasive network, a compression of time and space, which leads us the ever growing interconnectivity of our modern society in mind.
For the series high altitude (2008-2010) Najjar has climbed Aconcagua, the highest mountain with 6,962 meters in the world outside of the Himalayas. He has undergone a rigorous change by having the mountain ranges exactly adapted to the configuration of the international stock markets Recordings. What it shows is the ups and downs of the economy. And as there are reality and simulation hardly tell them apart. What we see is the movement of the tectonic plates of the world economy over the past twenty to thirty years, in the course of which mount up new mountains and earthquakes such as erosion can not fail. Najjar shows the Sublime in the age of information technology becoming all-powerful.
With his current work group outerspace ( since 2011 ) Najjar wants to travel into space. Najjar belongs to the group of "Pioneer Astronauts " by Richard Branson's company Virgin Galactic. His flight with SpaceShipTwo is scheduled for 2014. In the run- up Najjar itself is undergoing an intense astronaut training in Russia's Star City. Jet flights in the stratosphere, Zero-G, centrifugal and Spacewalk training as well as computer simulations Soyuz spacecraft are part of the training program.
Literature (selection )
- " In View - Photography from the Wemhöner collection ," Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld, Germany, 2012
- "high altitude ", Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld, Germany, 2011
- " Identity, or on a variety of perseptives ", exhibition catalog, Poznań, Poland, 2011
- " Michael Najjar ," Artinvestor - how to successfully invest in art, Munich, Germany, 2008
- "Augmented Realities - Michael Najjar 1997-2008 ", Eikon, Vienna, Austria, 2008
- "Augmented Realities - Michael Najjar Works 1997 - 2008 ", Veenman, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
- "Japanese Style ", Federal Foreign Office of Germany, Michael Najjar, Berlin, Germany, 2005