While all of Ashery’s characters personify male identities of distinct cultural and social soundness, some also suggest an agency of hidden anger – anger that manifests itself in the liberation of macho-feminity disguised in the uniform of a male weakening. In harnessing and emasculating the male body, these almost ‘real men’ represent individuals exploring power and collapse while engaged in alternative forms of social reconstruction and cultural exchange. Ashery is in a sense ‘fooling around’ with mainstream associations. Her new works suggest a thematic shift from the early ‘more innocent’ desires attached to Marcus Fisher, to ones that have progressed and matured.

　　Dr. Stephen Wilson is an independent artist, writer and lecturer based in London.

　　[1] Ashery is cunningly divisive in aptly naming her character Marcus Fisher with biological and metaphorical intrigue – ‘Mar-cus’ translates in Hebrew/Arabic as Mr. Cunt. Marcus Fisher extends to Boy Marcus and Young Marcus. Sarmad the Saint and Shabbtai Zvi (The Deerman – Zvi translates as ‘deer’ in Hebrew) are a recent addition of real historical figures used by Ashery as emblems of saintly performative transgressions. Also included are David Deliberate – an as yet undeveloped character that is centred on a displaced gender dysphoric mentality; The Fat Farmer (a character used for hair cutting in Central Location); The Greasy Instructor (see Shopping List for Live Art video); a black man and a white woman (see Colored Folk with Shaheen Merali); Sami Raah, an Arab man (Raah translates to ‘bad’ in Hebrew and ‘gone’ in Arabic) – see, Oh Jeruslaem and Portrait Sketch); and Masturbating Rabbit (see Occupation I, II – not in this book).

　　2 Ashery’s text was written for an evening of performances and films centred on the theme of protest, rebellion and revolt, titled A Staged Dissent: Life Is Interesting… When You’re Furious, at Loughborough University, 18 June 2008.

　　3See Giancarlo Ambrosino (ed.), David Wojnarowicz – A Definitive History of Five or Six Years on the Lower East Side, Semiotext(e), 2006, p. 177. In reading several interviews on the life of David Wojnarowicz, a man who died of AIDS, I found myself moved by his extraordinary story. He led his life surrounded by immense intellectual dignity, involving considerable deaths and an inordinate amount of suffering and pain. The overwhelming significance of living and working as an artist is tough enough for most people, but to factor in the thought of one’s own proceeding death is altogether more consuming. Wojnarowicz, incredibly, managed the knowledge of his illness alongside the limited history available to him at the time of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s with amazing aptitude. An example of this is stated during an interview with Sylvere Lotringer (held in New York in April 1989) pertaining to a book by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross titled On Death and Dying. Lotringer discusses the book’s premise of five stages surrounding death, starting with denial, rage, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. It is Wojnarowicz’s need to rearticulate preconceived sentiments connected to the notion of “courage” of friends he witnessed dying of AIDS that is of major significance. He refers to this later in terms of “rage” and concedes that when he was diagnosed with AIDS (this interview was held three months after his initial diagnosis), he felt betrayed by this supposed “courage” and more importantly “enraged” by it. Wojnarowicz and Lotringer both agree that the very “courage” that once meant something was in fact covering a deep silence, a world of politeness, or, as described by Wojnarowicz, “the more politely a person dies, the more courageous they are […] and everbody can live with it, rather than confront themselves with death, with rage, with all the expressions that somebody who’s not polite exhibits.”