Education:
Asher Hartman is a graduate of UCLA (Theater) and CalArts (Studio Art.)
Bio/Affiliation:
Asher Hartman is a transgender visual artist, writer, director, and maker of live performances. His works, which combine strategies of theater and performance art, grapple with social and political issues in an era of chronic crisis. His works are dense, visual, poetic embodied texts infused with clown and cringe humor, evidence of trance and psychic journeying, set in engulfing installations designed to disorient, unnerve, and elicit strong feelings. A great deal of his work was developed with the support of Machine Project in Los Angeles from 2010-2017 and is currently at The Lab in San Francisco and now with The Lab in San Francisco. Asher Hartman is the director and founder of Gawdafful National Theater, a group of visual artists, actors, and performance artists with whom he has created since 2010.
Professional Accomplishments/Exhibitions
Recent Projects:
- "Blessed with Switch", Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, 2024
- "It's Better to Start Out Ugly," The Emily Harvey Foundation, New York, 2024
- “It’s Better to Start Out Ugly”, JOAN (2023)
- The Lab, San Francisco, 2023
- Novel Excerpt: “Female Hallucinations, Folk Horses, and Gaunt Motherfuckers” Featured in TDR (Cambridge University Press, 2022)
Gawdafful Performances:
- “The Dope Elf”, Large-scale live-in installation at Yale Union, Portland, Oregon (2019)
- Six short films presented at The Lab, San Francisco (June 2021)
- Live Performance: “Organized Around the Erotics of Doing You In”, The Lab (2021)
Recent Publications:
- Five short play pieces catalog for “Lifes” at the Hammer Museum (2022)
Past Performance and Theater Works:
- “The Lost Privilege Company”, Visions and Voices, USC, LA (2018)
- “Sorry, Atlantis, Or Eden’s Achin’ Organ Seeks Revenge” Machine Project, LA (2017)
- “Mr. Akita” Hauser & Wirth, LA (2017)
- Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2017)
- “The Silver, the Black, the Wicked Dance”, Commissioned by LACMA (2016)
- “Mr. Akita”, The Tang Art Museum, NY (2015)
- “Purple Electric Play!”, Machine Project (2014)
- “Glass Bang”, MAK Center for Art & Architecture’s RM Schindler’s Fitzpatrick-Leland House as part of Machine Project’s engagement in the Getty Museum’s “Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.” (2013)
- Cannonball in Miami as “The Florida Room”, Southern Exposure in San Francisco (2013)
- “See What Love the Father Has Given Us”, Machine Project (2012)
- “All Stars of Non-Violet Communication”, LACE, Highways Performance Space, Human Resources (2011)
- “Annie Okay!”, The Hammer Museum, LA (2010)
Book:
- "Mad Clot on a Holy Bone", Published by X Artists’ Books (2020)
Intuitive-Creative Workshops Conducted by Asher Hartman (Alone and with Haruko Tanaka):
Colleges, Museums, and Universities:
- Carleton College (2022)
- C/O Berlin (2018)
- Crystal Bridges, Arkansas (2018)
- Philbrook Museum, Tulsa (2018)
- Gasworks, London (2017)
- The Pulitzer Art Museum, St. Louis (2016)
- Perez Art Museum (2014)
- Real Art Ways, Hartford (2013)
- Extrapool, Netherlands (2013)
- The Hayward Gallery, London (2012)
- The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2012)
- The Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh (2012)
- Many other venues
- Numerous workshops with Machine Project
Recent Teaching:
Classes and Workshops:
- Otis College of Art and Design
- CalArts
- Art Center
- Pomona College
- USC
- UC Riverside
- Ox-Bow School of Arts in Michigan
- The Golden Dome Mystery School
Publications:
Selected Bibliography:
- "Lifes" Hammer Museum
- "Female Hallucinations, Folk Horses, and Gaunt Motherfuckers" by Asher Hartman TDR, Cambridge University Press, June 16, 2022.
- "Stuck in the Same Muck: Journeying through Asher Hartman’s Psychic Theater,” by Catherine G. Wagely, MOMUS, February 11, 2021.
- “It is Dense and Bears Repetition: Notes on Rehearsals of Asher Hartman’s The Dope Elf” by Neha Choksi, Riting.org
- “The Gawdafful Plays of Asher Hartman” by Janet Sarbanes, American Theater, October 15, 2020
- “Meet an Artist Monday: Asher Hartman” by Shana Nys Dambrot, LA Weekly, May 25, 2020
- “50 Artists Step Into the Role of President,” by Matt Stromberg, Hyperallergic, September 15, 2020
- "Skin of the Actor, Teeth of the Artist," By Asher Hartman for The Brooklyn Rail, July 11, 2016