Ashley Bickerton A big fish in bondage
By Gareth Harris
Barbados-born artist Ashley Bickerton was previously associated with the 1980s Neo-Geo geometric abstraction movement when he astutely and humorously addressed art's commodity status. His warts 'n' all style, now described as "tropical surrealism", is typified by this ten-foot-long hammerhead shark in bondage, which hangs from the Lehmann Maupin stand (F17). Covered in industrial orange netting and adorned with coconuts and sachets of distilled water, Orange Shark, 2008 is in-your-face art that reflects Bickerton's life philosophy: "I must strip myself of vanity, lizard and cow. And lay myself naked to reveal the hairless, smelly, horny primate that I am." The work is an edition of three (around $500,000 each), two of which have been sold to private collectors.