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.
Asher Hartman has also conducted alone, and with his (now deceased) collaborative
partner, Haruko Tanaka, numerous intuitive-creative workshops at colleges, museums,
and universities, including 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 (Pittsburg, 2012), among
many other venues and numerous workshops with Machine Project. Recent teaching includes
classes and workshops here at Otis College of Art and Design, CalArts; Art Center,
Pomona College, USC, UC Riverside, Ox-Bow School of Arts in Michigan, and 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
Clients/Employment History:
Recent teaching includes classes and workshops at USC, Art Center, Pomona College, Otis College of Art and Design, CalArts, and Ox-Bow School of Arts in Michigan and The Golden Dome Mystery School.