Serge Najjar

Artist Biography

Serge Najjar’s approach to photography is intuitive. It derives from his passion for modern and contemporary art. He easily references Kazimir Malevich’s “Architectons”, Josef Albers’ abstract compositions, Robert Mangold and Ellsworth Kelly, and also Lygia Clark, Aurélie Nemours, Frank Stella and Sol Lewitt. The graphic approach of the Russian Avant-garde and, specifically, Alexander Rodchenko catches Najjar’s interest early on his career: deciphering the image and its construction will come to guide the structure of his future endeavours.

Serge Najjar’s pictures place the viewer within a world where reality and fantasy meet. They capture the passing of time, or a space where the transient disposition of man would inhabit ideal radical constructions. Motionless variations on a theme, the photographs engage in a dialogue, complete each other or not, but always create a singular space that is inhabited by the onlooker within the space they are presented in.

In a sort of backward movement, Najjar uses photography in the digital age while adhering to an approach that embraces the formal rigour better known from analog photography. Always on foot across the city, the photographer tracks down architecture, surfaces and “ordinary” shapes which when seen from unusual angles appear as surreal figures. One click and the concert of the outdoors is frozen into evidence.

Shadow and light, passerby, subject, worker; thus architecture and man stay on the edge of abstraction. This is where we find the formal language of the photographer. By appropriating the principles of capture of immediate reality, where direct photography is only possible thanks to the distance of the subject, and the photographer too.

Whether colour or black and white photographs, Najjar’s body of images forms a coherent sum that emerges instantly, without mediation, as a dance between flatness and depth. Careful, calm, without outcry, the photographer plays with elements that are readily available. Shadows become geometric sculptures; three dimensional shapes morph into planes. Perspectives tilt, the image is constructed, reality is cut, riffled through and rebuilt by the lines that surround us.

Serge Najjar is represented by Galerie Tanit Beirut/Munich.

Exhibitions
Featured
ART DÜSSELDORF 2024

From Friday April 12, 2024 to Sunday April 14, 2024

Featured
Paris Photo 2023

From November 9, 2023 to November 12, 2023

Featured
PARIS PHOTO 2019

From November 7, 2019 to November 10, 2019

Featured
PARIS PHOTO 2018

From November 8, 2018 to November 11, 2018

Featured
MENART 2023

From February 3, 2023 to February 5, 2023

Featured
Paper Trail
50 years
Collective Exhibition

From November 23, 2022 to December 23, 2022

Featured
PARIS PHOTO 2021

From November 11, 2021 to November 14, 2021

Featured
Sculpting the Shadow
Collective Exhibition

From June 24, 2016 to September 3, 2016

Featured
A Closer Look at the Ordinary
Serge Najjar

From February 11, 2016 to March 31, 2016

Featured
ART PARIS 2017

From March 29, 2017 to April 2, 2017

Featured
PARIS PHOTO 2017

From November 9, 2017 to November 12, 2017

Featured
PHOTO LONDON 2018

From May 16, 2018 to May 20, 2018

Featured
Lines, Within
Serge Najjar

From September 20, 2012 to October 20, 2012

Featured
Narrated
Collective Exhibition

From March 22, 2018 to May 30, 2018

Serge Najjar News
"“Sous l’objectif de Sege Najjar: D’architecture en Art” Date: 16 November, 2018 – 13 January, 2019 More info"
Serge Najjar | Galerie Bessieres
Read Article
Featured
Serge Najjar | Asyaaf 아시아프 2018
Read Article
"Serge Najjar will take part in 아시아프(Asyaaf) 2018 as a ‘Hidden Artist’ Date : July 24 – August 19, 2018 More info "
"Serge Najjar at The Beirut Center of Photography Date: Wednesday, June 13th. From 7:30 to 9:30 pm Location: A+BCP in Gemmayzeh (behind Artlab) More info"
Serge Najjar ar A+BCP
Read Article
Featured
Les Secrets de la Photo Minimaliste avec Denis Dubesset
Read Article
"Regards sur le minimalisme Dans ce dernier chapitre, l’auteur nous présente deux clichés de cinq autres photographes sélectionnés par ses soins : Andy Feltham, Serge Najjar, Michel Lecocq, Bastien Riu et Vincent Munier."
"“Beyond Appearances”. From january 27th to March 25th, 2018 Serge Najjar’s exhibition “Soul of the Visible” is at Galerie Bessières Art contemporain. He will be exhibiting 12 photographs at Maison Levanneur for the opening of the gallery that will take place in this historical house that once was the atelier of Derain and (de) Vlaminck. More […]"
Inaugural Exhibition – Bessières Art Contemporain Gallery
Read Article