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Posted: 05/13/11
Duration: 8:42
Producer: Robert Knafo
Views: 22239
Ashley Bickerton came to prominence in the early 1980's with a series of fabricated, logo-plastered structures that cheekily satirized conceptions of painting, artistic signature and style. In the wake of an art world economic downturn, and his own financial and career woes, Bickerton in 1994 left New York, eventually settling in Bali, where he could live cheaply and where he re-invented his work and artistic persona. His work began to reflect his surroundings, as well as what he has called the "elephant in the room," Gauguin, who a hundred years before established the model of the Western, white, male artist seeking refuge from the modern world in an ostensible paradise in the South Seas. Broadly speaking his work of the last fifteen years can be understood as an encounter with the Gauguinesque mythology. With his latest work, which opened at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York May 6, 2011, Bickerton has turned his attention to the honkytonk, neon-lit underbelly of the South Pacific paradise.
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