Studio Michael Najjar
Wilhelm-Kabus-Strasse 42/44, Haus 6.1
10829 Berlin
Germany
phone: +49 (0)30 210 182 86
mail: studio@michaelnajjar.com
Studio Michael Najjar
Wilhelm-Kabus-Strasse 42/44, Haus 6.1
10829 Berlin
Germany
phone: +49 (0)30 210 182 86
mail: studio@michaelnajjar.com
Studio manager
Emma Nilsson
emma@michaelnajjar.com
Registrar
Moritz Weber
moritz@michaelnajjar.com
Accounting
Anke Witt
buchhaltung@michaelnajjar.com
BANK / MABSOCIETY Gallery
Shanghai / New York
Lane 298 Anfu Lu, Building 2
Xuhui District, Shanghai 200031
China
phone: +86 21 63013622
mail: info@mabsociety.com
www.bankmabsociety.com
Galería Juan Silió
Calle del Dr. Fourquet, 20
28012 Madrid
Spain
phone: +34 914 85 85 32
mail: info@juansilio.com
www.juansilio.com
Studio La Cittá
Lungadige Galtarossa, 21
37133 Verona
Italy
phone: +39 45 597 549
mail: info@studiolacitta.it
www.studiolacitta.it
ARTITLEDcontemporary
Rogstraat 28
5373 AV Herpen
The Netherlands
phone: +31 6 47 12 18 00
mail: info@artitledcontemporary.com
www.artitledcontemporary.com
born 1966 in Landau, Germany
lives and works in Berlin, Germany
1988 -1993 Bildo Academy, Berlin, Germany
graduated in Photography / New Media Art
lived and worked in
1990 Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
1992 Madrid, Spain
1996 Havana, Cuba
1999 Tokyo, Japan
2003 New York, USA
2008 London, UK
Michael Najjar | Biography
Michael Najjar is one of the most important international photo artists of his generation. In his works he deals in a complex and critical way with the technological developments that are defining and drastically changing the early 21st century. Najjar develops his photographic and video works from an interdisciplinary understanding of art. He combines science, art and technology to create artistic visions and utopias of future social orders emerging under the influence of new technologies.
Born in 1966 in Landau, Germany, from 1988 – 1993 Najjar attended the bildo Akademie für Medienkunst in Berlin. During this time, he immersed himself in the visionary theories of media philosophers such as Vilém Flusser, Paul Virilio and Jean Baudrillard which still exert a significant influence on his artistic work today. Throughout his extensive oeuvre Najjar continually questions the relationship between reality and simulation.
His works are always underpinned by a conceptual foundation. In building on this, Najjar relies on the overwhelming aesthetic power of his large-format photos and immersive videos which are mainly generated from a digital collage of various content elements and image sources. He expands the potential of the photographic image by subjecting it to a constant reconstruction of time and space. His pictures are at the same time a condensation and construction of reality and thus unfold their visionary power. Only on closer inspection do the underpinning art-historical, technological and scientific backgrounds of the hyperreal image worlds become apparent.
Najjar’s works are grouped in thematic work series. In terms of content, these range from the transformation of global megacities through increasingly dense information networks, the transformation of the human body by means of biogenetic interventions, and the virtualisation of financial markets through intelligent algorithms, to the influence of the latest space technologies on our future in space, and our planetary future in times of climate change and geoengineering. The inspiration for Najjar’s works comes from literature and films but also from his collaboration with scientists and researchers. .For decades now, Najjar has undertaken journeys and expeditions around the globe. He has climbed seven-thousand-metre high peaks, scaled skyscrapers, trekked on erupting volcanoes, crossed glaciers, descended into ice caves, traversed deserts, taken astronaut training, and intends to be the first artist to fly into space. To create his images, Najjar exposes his body to extreme experiences and tests his mental and physical limits in the context of highly complex natural or technological environments.
Since he first began work in the mid-nineties, his art has been shown in numerous international gallery and museum exhibitions as well as at biennials. In 2004, Harald Szeemann showed his work in "The Beauty of Failure / The Failure of Beauty" at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona. In 2006, he was invited to the 10th Venice Architecture Biennale and also exhibited at the 9th Havana Bienniale in the same year. In 2008, the GEM Museum of Contemporary Art in The Hague staged the first comprehensive overview of his work so far. In 2011, he took part in the ground-breaking exhibition "Atlas - How to carry the world on one's back", which was shown at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe and the Hamburg Deichtorhallen/Phönixhallen. In 2015, his series "outer space" was shown by Peter Weibel in the revolutionary exhibition "Exo-Evolution" at the ZKM Karlsruhe. In 2017, he was invited by Yuko Hasegawa to participate in the 7th International Moscow Biennale.
Furthermore, Najjar has exhibited in the following national and international museums, institutions and galleries: Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation, Berlin; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Kunsthalle Hamburg / Galerie der Gegenwart, Hamburg; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Marta Museum, Herford; Edith Russ Haus für Medienkunst, Oldenburg; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; Saatchi Gallery, London; Science Museum, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Birmingham; Centre pour l'image contemporaine, Geneva; Centro de Arte Contemporaneo, Málaga; Museo Es Baluard, Palma de Mallorca; Museo DA2 (Domus Artium 2002), Salamanca; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade; Tampere Art Museum, Tampere; New Media Art Institute, Amsterdam; FORMA International Centre for Photography, Milan; Museum of Art, Tucson; Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; National Museum of Science, Taipei; Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; ZheJiang Art Museum, Hangzhou; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Art and Science Museum, Singapore.
Michael Najjar's works can also be found in renowned museum collections worldwide, as well as in corporate and private collections. Numerous international publications are dedicated to his work
Museums + Institutions (selection)
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
ZKM – Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany
Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany
Willy-Brandt-Haus, Berlin, Germany
Museum Kunstwerk, Eberdingen-Nussdorf, Germany
CAC - Centro de Arte Contemporaneo, Málaga, Spain
Museo Es Baluard, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Museo de Bellas Artes, Santander, Spain
Fundació Coff, San Sebastián, Spain
Museo DA2.domusartium2000, Salamanca, Spain
TEA – Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Tenerife, Spain
Centre national de l’audiovisuel (CNA), Luxembourg
Gemeente Museum, The Hague, The Netherlands
Stichting Avivia, Reeuwijk, The Netherlands
Muzeum Susch, Susch, Switzerland
National Air & Space Museum, Washington D.C., USA
Australian China Art Foundation, Melbourne,
Australia
Corporate collections (selection)
Absolut Research GmbH, Hamburg, Germany
Aengelvelt Collection, Düsseldorf, Germany
Avesco Financial Services AG, Berlin, Germany
BHO | Legal, Cologne, Germany
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Düsseldorf, Germany
Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), Eschborn, Germany
Klingsöhr GmbH, Berlin, Germany
McKinsey & Company, Frankfurt, Germany
OHB, Bremen, Germany
Schneider Geiwitz, Ulm, Germany
Sony Collection, Cologne, Germany
MT Aerospace Collection, Augsburg, Germany
Wemhöner Collection, Herford, Germany
Wittenstein AG, Igersheim, Germany
Colleción Banco Santander, Madrid, Spain
Colleción Bankia, Madrid, Spain
Kameha Group, Zürich, Switzerland
Precipart SA, Lyss, Switzerland
Otto Beisheim Collection, Baar, Switzerland
Sofina Collection, Brussels, Belgium
Uni Credito Collection, Milano, Italy
Norman Foster Collection, London, UK
Adessium Foundation, Reeuwijk, The Netherlands
Hillsdale Investment Management Inc., Toronto, Canada
Balyasny Asset Management, New York, USA
Fidelity Investments, Boston, USA
Hellman & Friedman, New York, USA
Hogan & Hartson Collection, New York, USA
IBM Collection, New York, USA
Progressive Collection, Ohio, USA
Sprint Collection, Kansas City, USA
Sysco Collection, Houston, USA
Baker McKenzie, Shanghai, China
Imprint
Personally liable:
Michael Najjar
Design concept & coding: Matthias Hübner, possible.is
with support by Marco Land
Disclaimer
Accountability for content
The contents of our pages have been created with the utmost care. However, we cannot guarantee the contents' accuracy, completeness or topicality. According to statutory provisions, we are furthermore responsible for our own content on these web pages. In this context, please note that we are accordingly not obliged to monitor merely the transmitted or saved information of third parties, or investigate circumstances pointing to illegal activity. Our obligations to remove or block the use of information under generally applicable laws remain unaffected by this as per §§ 8 to 10 of the Telemedia Act (TMG).
Accountability for links
Responsibility for the content of external links (to web pages of third parties) lies solely with the operators of the linked pages. No violations were evident to us at the time of linking. Should any legal infringement become known to us, we will remove the respective link immediately.
Copyright
Our web pages and their contents are subject to German copyright law. Unless expressly permitted by law (§ 44a et seq. of the copyright law), every form of utilizing, reproducing or processing works subject to copyright protection on our web pages requires the prior consent of the respective owner of the rights. Unauthorized utilization of copyrighted works is punishable (§ 106 of the copyright law).
Our newsletter
With our newsletter we inform you about us and our offers and events, art fair participations and exhibitions in galleries, museums and art institutions. If you register for our newsletter, we will save your e-mail address, first name(s) and last name, as well as any information you choose to provide on a purely voluntary basis. If you do not wish to consent to this, you can unsubscribe by using the link at the end of every newsletter.
You can revoke your consent to the storage of your data, e-mail address and the use of your data to send the newsletter at any time. This revocation can be effected by notifying us: studio@michaelnajjar.com
In the course of the further development of our website, changes to this privacy policy may become necessary. We therefore recommend that you reread this data protection statement from time to time.