Doug Ashford

Doug Ashford is a teacher, artist and writer. He is Associate Professor at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art where he has taught three-dimensional design, sculpture, public art and theory seminars since 1989. The collaboratively taught Interdisciplinary Seminar and lecture series he began there is now in its fifteenth year. Ashford’s principle visual practice from 1982 to 1996 was the artists’ collaborative Group Material that produced over 40 exhibitions and public projects internationally. Group Material developed the exhibition form into an artistic medium using display design and curatorial juxtaposition as a critical location where audiences were invited to imagine democratic forms. The group’s work has been recently collected in the book Show and Tell: A Chronicle of Group Material, (Four Corners Press, 2010)  – edited by Ashford’s long time collaborator, Julie Ault.  Since 1996, Ashford has continued to make paintings, write, and produce museum and public projects. His  work in public practices are encapsulated in the book Who Cares, (Creative Time, 2006), a publication built from a series of conversations between Ashford and an assembly of other cultural practitioners on public expression, beauty, and ethics in 2006.  The recent publication, Writings and Interviews by Doug Ashford, (Mousse Publishing and Grazer Kunstverein) was published in 2013.
He is represented by Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam.