In the early 1990s, Dodge was one of the founders of and curators for the San Francisco community-based performance space, Red Dora's Bearded Lady Coffeehouse. During this time Dodge wrote, directed, and performed several evening-length, monologue-based performances, including "Muddy Little River" and "From Where I'm Sitting ". In the late 1990s, Dodge co-wrote, directed, edited and starred in a narrative feature film, By Hook or By Crook, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and received five Best Feature awards at various film festivals. Dodge also performed in the 2000 John Waters film Cecil B. Demented. From 2004 to 2008, while continuing to make solo work, Dodge formed half of a video-making collaboration with artist Stanya Kahn. Since 2008 Dodge has focused on sculpture, drawing, video, and writing. His interdisciplinary practice is “characterized by its explorations of relation, materiality and ecstatic contamination. Artforum says his “dense, idea-rich” works are “designed to hold ideas of individuality and multiplicity in tension and to create spaces of dynamic slippage between the whole and its parts.” Dodge teaches in the Program of Art at CalArts and in sculpture program of the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
My Meteorite Or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing, Penguin Random House, 2020
Awards
In 2017 Dodge was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2012 he received an Art Matters grant. His co-directed film By Hook or By Crook received several awards, including Best Feature, Audience Award at Outfest Los Angeles Lesbian & Gay Film Festival; Best Screenplay, Grand Jury Prize at Outfest Los Angeles Lesbian & Gay Film Festival; Best Feature, Jury Prize at Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival; Best New Director, Jury Prize at Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival; Best Feature, Audience Award at Mardi Gras Festival, Australia; Best Feature, Audience Award at South by Southwest Film Festival; Best Feature, Jury Award at Philadelphia Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.
Personal life
Dodge is married to the author Maggie Nelson, with whom he has a child. He also has a son from a previous relationship. Dodge uses the pronoun “he,” but has long expressed disinterest in gender designations. In a 2017 interview with Lunch Ticket he discusses an interest in Adorno’s theory of “non-identity,” or “non-language knowings.” Dodge and Nelson identify as a queer couple.
