The transgression and transformation of bodies, identities, categories, materials and arts dominate the life and work of Ashley Hans Scheirl in a manifold way. Rosemarie Brucher researches into this queer aesthetic of trans* and into the artistic strategies of construction and deconstruction of identities and bodies, which Scheirl uses to reveal constitutive alliances of seeming dissent.

Rosemarie Brucher (*1980 Graz, lives in Vienna) studied theatre-, film- and media studies, German studies, and comparative literature at the Universities of Vienna and Leipzig. After holding research units and guest lectures in Vienna, Berlin and New York, since 2013 she has been a senior scientist for theatre studies at the Department of Gender Studies at the University of the Arts in Graz, which she also co-directs. Her main research interest focuses on performance art, Viennese actionism, subject- and difference theory, gender studies, and the intertwinement of art, philosophy and psycho sciences at the turn of the century. Currently she is also a research fellow at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK) in Vienna.

Ashley Hans Scheirl (*1956 Salzburg, lives in Vienna) considered cult figure in an international scene of queer- and transgender artists studied restoration at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (diploma, 1980). Scheirl spent sixteen years in London, where she took part in the scene of queer and transgender artists. In 2003 completion postgraduate studies (MA) in the visual arts (painting/installation) at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. After returning to Vienna in 2005, receiving of the Austrian state scholarship for the visual arts in 2006. Since the autumn of 2006 Scheirl has been professor of “contextual painting” at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Scheirl’s works have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf / KIT, the Taxispalais Kunsthalle Tirol, the Kunsthaus Bregenz, MUSA Museum Startgalerie Artothek in Vienna, the Shedhalle in Zurich, the Nova Galerija Zagreb, MACBA Museu d/Art Contemporani de Barcelona, and the Museum of Modern Art Vienna as well as recently in Documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens.