Organized by Ellie Rines

Lehmann Maupin presents Seascapes at the End of History, artist Ashley Bickerton’s sixth solo exhibition at the gallery. As part of its bold reappraisal of the seascape genre, the exhibition features works from Bickerton’s Ocean Chunk series, which he first conceived of while living in New York City prior to his relocation to the Indonesian island of Bali in 1993. During “one grueling [New York] winter too many,” as he desperately yearned to swim in warm, tropical waters, Bickerton—who spent decades as an avid surfer—imagined these works as sensual material portals to faraway seas, calling them “a contemporary form of idolatry [and] a bulwark against longing.” Made of resin and fiberglass, they appear as solid, three-dimensional chunks of undulating ocean water, extending the artist’s career-spanning interest in the hybridization of mediums—particularly sculpture, painting, and photography—and his efforts to formally overhaul art historical genres such as seascape painting.