{"id":372,"date":"2003-05-17T04:54:38","date_gmt":"2003-05-17T04:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/?p=372"},"modified":"2008-10-27T04:58:09","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T04:58:09","slug":"john-bauer-free-floating-anxiety-at-bellwether-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/2003\/05\/17\/john-bauer-free-floating-anxiety-at-bellwether-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"John Bauer: ‘Free Floating Anxiety’, At Bellwether Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

For ‘Flash Art’ Magazine
\n

\"John<\/a>
John Bauer, Another Layer in the Conspiracy Theory, 2002-3.Oil, Alkyd and enamel on linen 77.5 x 93 in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nNot long ago, a cartoon in The New Yorker showed a man passing by a bar that had replaced \u2018happy hour\u2019 with \u2018lessened anxiety hour.\u2019 John Bauer\u2019s enormous paintings, filling the front room at Bellwether Gallery, pick up on the mood of the nation with a humor all their own. Set against a glossy, black background, each painting is an organized riot of marks and shapes set in the micro-gravity of deep space.<\/p>\n

Two things become clear quickly. First, the architectural outlines, grids of color and areas of digitization look like direct quotes from popular contemporary painting. Second, the swirls of gold spray paint, recurring turquoise and purple colored shapes and the occasional v-shaped outline of a bird in flight are a conscious effort at bad taste. The paintings are a parable of taste gone berserk, of what might happen if a cosmic wind swept up the \u2018high\u2019 and \u2018low,\u2019 contemporary and dated, and blended them together in a chaotic swirl of signs.<\/p>\n

This world without aesthetic law, is likened to the country\u2019s current political and economic uncertainty in titles like, \u2018Another Layer in the Conspiracy Theory\u2019 and \u2018White Collar Crime.\u2019 Other titles refer to heavy drinking and pharmaceuticals, suggesting the extent to which \u2018free-floating anxiety\u2019 can take its toll. Abstract painting rarely tells such a clear story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For ‘Flash Art’ Magazine Not long ago, a cartoon in The New Yorker showed a man passing by a bar that had replaced \u2018happy hour\u2019 with \u2018lessened anxiety hour.\u2019 John Bauer\u2019s enormous paintings, filling the front room at Bellwether Gallery, pick up on the mood of the nation with a humor all their own. Set … <\/p>\n

Read more “John Bauer: ‘Free Floating Anxiety’, At Bellwether Gallery”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24],"tags":[8,18,9,15,14,13,12,17,10,16,11],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-contemporary","tag-critic","tag-exhibition","tag-gallery","tag-new-york","tag-photography","tag-sculpture","tag-tour","tag-visual-art"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BDOD-60","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}