From "Best of 2006"
By Alison M. Gingeras
Ashley Bickerton (Sonnabend Gallery, New York, Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York)
Bickerton is the most underestimated and overlooked artist of his generation, and this two-gallery overview last spring made the case for his full reinstatement on the art world's radar screen - and the urgent need for a full museum retrospective. His most recent works - painting/sculpture tableaux depicting les tristes tropiques and a series of self-exploitative portraits made in Bali - are as wonderfully toxic as the now classic-looking '80s icons, his faux-high-tech contraptions and his "abstract" logo paintings. Like his unconventional career choices, Bickerton's anthropological art forces us down an angry, politically incorrect path.