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Ashley Bickerton — Cousteau Totem (Jacques and his Pudenda)
Ashley Bickerton

Cousteau Totem (Jacques and his Pudenda)

A towering, fetishistic assemblage of oceanic and industrial iconography, this work pays irreverent homage to the legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau through Bickerton's signature fusion of pop culture, consumerism, and primal symbolism. The totem form stacks layered references to marine exploration and bodily desire, collapsing the heroic and the vulgar into a single provocative monument. True to Bickerton's Neo-Geo sensibility, the piece interrogates how mythology, masculinity, and commodification become intertwined in the construction of cultural icons.

🔨 Auction Lot

Under the Influence

December 10, 2014

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About this work

Ashley Bickerton, Cousteau Totem (Jacques and his Pudenda)

A towering, fetishistic assemblage of oceanic and industrial iconography, this work pays irreverent homage to the legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau through Bickerton's signature fusion of pop culture, consumerism, and primal symbolism. The totem form stacks layered references to marine exploration and bodily desire, collapsing the heroic and the vulgar into a single provocative monument. True to Bickerton's Neo-Geo sensibility, the piece interrogates how mythology, masculinity, and commodification become intertwined in the construction of cultural icons.

Seen at
Phillips, New York, London, Hong Kong

Related themes

Assemblage, Bold, Conceptual, American, Sculpture, Mixed Media, Pop Art, Provocative, Figurative, Contemporary

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