Lehmann Maupin
In 1992 Ashley Bickerton created an installation for
an exhibition called "Translation" at the
Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski
Castle, in Warsaw. It was a large
circular life raft heaped with green cabbages
in a room painted black. Its flashing
emergency light lit the space. Two
The multicolored women, children,
piglets, tropical fruit, and pottery knowingly
take Gauguin's escapist fantasy to
bizarre extremes. The bronze snake
sculptures are portraits of the artist as the
serpent that strangled Laocoon. It's hard
not to think of that legendary photo of
Gauguin in Tahiti, a ludicrous white man
playing the piano in his boxer shorts.
But Bickerton, at least, is fully aware that
he is the snake in the garden.
-Kim Levin