He made mixed-media pieces that he termed self-portraits, yet they were composed only of logos for TV channels, car companies, cigarette manufacturers, and more. He was featured in a famed show at Sonnabend Gallery that solidified the Neo-Geo movement, which revived geometric abstraction with a new postmodern bent, and rose alongside his compatriots Peter Halley, Meyer Vaisman, and Jeff Koons.
He made a group of sculptural pieces that seemed to function as flotation devices; they were emblazoned with the name of his SUSIE alter ego. And he began to focus on the myth of artistic genius, which he exposed as something empty and patriarchal. There was a shift away from the consumerist imagery, toward concerns about what people had done to the paradisiacal nature that could be found in locales like Bali.
He refused, however, to let his illness consume him. Interview with Ashley Bickerton. Ashley Bickerton in conversation with Aaron Curry. Ashley Bickerton: Well, my identity was forged there, and my language was forged there. Even my sense of being an artist in the larger world was forged there. These are all very LA kinds of connections.
Rail: Also, you were dealing with conceptual art in a way that other CalArts students ended up doing. You were deeply interested in the object. In your own words, you were after Judd, you were on his trail. He made the empty container so you could pour in whatever you wanted, and people poured god in, they poured in the world, the universe. They became these sort of ornate Mandarin ritual artifacts. Is that one reason you left?
Bickerton: At the risk of fingering slipshod academics and lazy journalism, that is the case. You just get processed like a taxonomical artifact, like some butterfly with a pin through it.
