Brandon Bauer
Brandon Bauer, Endgame Strategy (For Vince Lombardi), 2011/2014, Color, sound, 10’21”. Courtesy the artist.
The video Endgame Strategy (For Vince Lombardi) attempts to aesthetically and conceptually tie the endgame modernist strategies of the late 1960s to the competitive spirit of head coach Vince Lombardi and his 1967 Ice Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers. The work begins with three rectangles tinted red, yellow, and blue. In these frames, still images drawn from the 1967 Ice Bowl morph frame by frame in a fragmented slideshow. The center rectangle slowly shifts over the duration of the video from yellow to green, making the transition from the red-yellow-blue primary color palette to the RGB color space of color image producing technologies. Near the end of the piece a computerized deep male voice speaks the famous āWhat It Takes to be Number Oneā speech by Vince Lombardi. The bravado of postwar modernist strategies to achieve the end point ontology of art is echoed by the bravado of Vince Lombardi and his fiercely competitive ideology.
On an interesting side noteāSt. Norbert College is the site of the Green Bay Packers’ summer training camp. The relationship between St. Norbert and the Green Bay Packers marks the longest continual use of any training camp facility by an NFL team.
This work was originally created for and aired on BATHAS TV in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2011, and has been reedited for the Athleticism issue of Drain.
Brandon Bauer is an artist based in Wisconsin. His work explores themes of capitalism, democracy, war, consumerism, and critical histories embedded in cultural ephemera. His work employs video, collage, drawing, installation, mapping strategies, explorations of critical histories, and collaboratively produced projects. Brandonās work has been exhibited and screened nationally and internationally. He is currently Assistant Professor of Art at St. Norbert College in De Pere, WI. randomculture.wordpress.com