Ace Lehner

BIOGRAPHY:

Ace Lehner is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar. Lehner's artwork has recently appeared at the International Center of Photography, New York, NY; The Fleming Museum, Burlington, VT; Geary Contemporary, Millerton, NY; el Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; SOMArts, San Francisco, CA; and The Wassaic Project in Wassaic NY. Lehner's writing on contemporary art and visual culture has appeared in Art Journal, Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change, Cultural Politics, REFRACT, The Journal on Images and Culture and others. Lehner's scholarship has appeared in numerous anthologies, including a chapter co-authored with Amelia Jones in Jones and Jane Chin Davidson’s Companion to Contemporary Art in a Global Framework (Wiley Blackwell, 2023). Lehner recently guest edited the first-ever issue of Art Journal dedicated to trans visual culture. Lehner has a Ph.D. in History of Art and Visual Culture from the University of California at Santa Cruz and MFA/MA in Fine Art and Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts.

STATEMENT:

Ace Lehner specializes in critical engagement with identity and representation, modern and contemporary art history and visual culture, new media, photography history and theory, trans and queer history and theory, critical race studies, and performance. Lehner's artistic practice primarily utilizes photography and performance to mine the complex relationship between representations and the constitution of identities. 

Their current research looks at trans and queer representations as interventions in methods of doing and thinking about identity and representation invested in decolonizing approaches to visual studies and art history. They recently edited the book Self-Representation in an Expanded Field: From Self-Portraiture to Selfie, Contemporary Art in the Social Media Age (MDPI Books). Their current book project is Trans Representations: Decolonizing Visual Theory in Contemporary Photography. Lehner is working on a series of portrait photographs investigating community and gratitude.

Their creative practice is often and extension of their scholarly investigation for example, ongoing installation and social practice performance piece Barbershop; The Art of Queer Failure explores the concept of queer failure as a productive way of proposing alternatives rather than adhering to traditions of barbershops which under the guise of giving haircuts often reinforce the notion of heteropatriarchal masculinity. Barbershop: The Art of Queer Failure fails to reinforce masculinity and instead gives any clipper style haircut to anyone of any gender who is willing to engage in the act of queer world-making before their haircut grows out. The exchange associated with one’s haircut is negotiated before or during your haircut. Some suggested acts of queer world-making in exchange for your hair cut can be found posted in the installation. Haircuts will be given by the artist Ace Lehner, who is not a trained barber but who has been cutting hair outside of sanctioned barber channels for over a decade, hence part of the ethos of queer failure. Sign-up is done via a chalkboard and is first-come-first-served; Polaroid photographs of participants are displayed in the installation.

“Halo”, archival inkjet print 30" x 40" 2009

“Barbershop”: The Art of Queer Failure, Installation and performance, social practice, dimensions variable

Materials: disco ball, glitter curtains, photographs, prints, pompom mirror and more. 2018-ongoing