In the 1980s Ashley Bickerton conquered the New York art world, leading a pack of artists who included Jeff Koons and Haim Steinbach in the neo-geo movement, a style that critiqued rampant consumerism. His series of aluminium-and-steel wall sculptures Tormented Self-Portraits (1987-88), lacquered with corporate logos from Fruit of the Loom to Citibank, became totemic of this get-rich-quick era.
Bickerton, who has died aged 63 from complications related to motor neurone disease, knew, however, that such celebrity was fickle and, to the astonishment of many, in 1993 upped sticks to Bali.
