Asher Hartman’s “Purple Electric Play!” performed at Machine Project, Los Angeles, 2014. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Marianne Williams.
Asher Hartman’s art is located at the intersection of performance, theater, and magic. He doesn’t practice hocus-pocus or the style of Gothic witchery seen in the 1996 film The Craft; he creates spaces for psychic, intuitive work that allows people to come together and create as a group. For the past twenty years, Hartman has written, directed, and performed in ritualistic magic-making marathons.
Hartman moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco in the 1970s to complete an undergraduate degree in theater at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He stayed for a master’s degree in studio art at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). He never meant to take up residence in Southern California, but people in the sprawling city of Los Angeles continue to inspire him. Yet Hartman credits the political climate that surrounded his childhood in San Francisco as a major influence.
Read the full story on Art21:
http://blog.art21.org/2015/02/11/asher-hartmans-ritualistic-marathons/#.VN1AzCldWra
