Omer Fast Blends Medieval Jewish Tales with the Contemporary Grotesque

HILI PERLSON , FRIEZE, September 17, 2019
In three video installations, the artist stages theatrical mise-en-scènes at Salzburger Kunstverein
The world doesn’t care. That’s the seemingly knee-jerk wisdom encapsulated in the titular Yiddish proverb that a young Orthodox Jew – who suddenly appears out of thin air on a chairlift in an Alpine ski resort – imparts to the German-speaking woman sitting beside him in the opening scenes of Omer Fast’s latest film, Der Oylem iz a Goylem (2019). The man is out of place; in his traditional black suit and Borsalino hat, he is hardly equipped for the snow-white slopes. And, besides, no Orthodox man would ever be caught sitting so closely to a woman other than his own wife.
 
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