Ashley Hans Scheirl overcomes the limitations of media as easily as she deals with gender and cultural norms. Born Angela Scheirl, the artist achieved international fame in the late 1980s for her experimental films and videos. She is now considered a trailblazer and a cult figure of the international queer and transgender artists scene. Scheirl’s work examines questions about her own identity by surmounting predefined genres and classifications. Her three-dimensional installations unite paintings, spatial designs, videos, photographs, drawings, sculptures, and performance props. The artist is interested in questioning the economy and power of social conditions and the libidinal structures active in them.

The publication introduces the artistic work of Ashley Hans Scheirl in eight essays and presents elaborate projects, among others for Documenta 14, the Biennale de Lyon 2019, the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien and the Salzburger Kunstverein.

Ashley Hans Scheirl (b. 1956 in Salzburg, lives in Vienna) studied restoration at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (diploma, 1980). From 1978 to 1985, she was involved in performative experiments with music and noise such as “8 oder 9” and “Ungünstige Vorzeichen” (Unfortunate Key Signature). From 1979 to 1996, she produced around fifty Super-8 short films. In 1981–82 Scheirl lived in New York and worked for Arleen Schloss’s off-Space “Wednesdays at A's.” Scheirl became famous for the two avant-garde feature films “Rote Ohren fetzen durch Asche” (Red Ears Tear through Ashes) and “Dandy Dust.” 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, receiving of the Austrian state scholarship for the visual arts in 2006. 2006 to 2019 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 an at the Biennale de Lyon 2019. In 2022 Ashley Hans Scheirl and Jakob Lena Knebl will be represent Austria at the Venice Biennale.