Doug Ashford

Doug Ashford, born in Rabat (MA) in 1958, is a teacher, artist and writer based in New York. He is Associate Professor at The Cooper Union for The Advancement of Science and Art, where he has taught sculpture, design, and interdisciplinary studies since 1989. Ashford's principle visual practice from 1982 to 1996 was the artists' collective Group Material, which produced over forty exhibitions and public projects internationally. Since 1996 he has continued to produce paintings, essays and collaborative projects that engage sociality in artistic form. His most notable public effort ended in the project Who Cares (Creative Time, 2006), a book built from a series of conversations between Ashford and an assembly of other cultural practitioners on public expression, ethics and beauty.

Solo exhibitions: 2014 Bureau publik, Kopenhagen. 2013 Abstraction as Empathy, Wilfried Lentz Gallery, Rotterdam (NL). Kunstverein, Graz (AT). 

Group exhibitions: 2014 We are Living on a Star, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo. 2012 Abstract Possible: The Stockholm Synergies, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm. Ruptures: Forms of Public Address, 41 Cooper Gallery, The Cooper Union, New York. dOCUMENTA 13, Museum Fridericianum and other locations, Kassel (DE). The Air We Breathe, SFMOMA, New York. 2011 Sharjah Biennial 10: A Plot for A Biennial, Sharjah Arts Foundation and other locations, Sharjah (AE). Abstract Possible: The Tamayo Take, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. 2010 Abstract Possible: The Trailer, Malmö Konsthall (SE).

Publications
Krist Gruijthuijsen (Kunstverein, Graz) (ed.), Writings and Conversations by Doug Ashford, Mousse Publishing, Milan 2013.

Doug Ashford, "Sometimes We Say Dreams When We Want to Say Hopes, or Wishes, or Aspirations", in: Johanna Burton, Lynne Cooke, Josiah McElheny (eds.), Interiors, Sternberg Press/CCS Bard, Berlin/New York 2012, pp 88-109.

Doug Ashford, "Group Material: Abstraction as the Onset of the Real", in: Maria Lind (ed.), Performing the Curatorial. Within and Beyond Art, Sternberg Press, Berlin 2012, pp 46-59.

Julie Ault (ed.), Show and Tell: A Chronicle of Group Material, Four Corners Books, London 2010.

• Web: www.dougashford.info