Brandon Bauer
(American, b. 1974; resides in De Pere, WI)
Sourcing material from public archives, Brandon Bauer approaches the history of nuclear weapons through abstract photo documentation. His 1000 Suns series is a record of the above ground nuclear tests conducted by the United States government between 1945 and 1962, before the ratification that year of the Partial Test Ban Treaty restricting test detonations to underground sites. Bauer’s project pairs images of more than 200 above ground tests captured at the precise moment of their brightest explosive flashes with identifying details about the detonations and thumbnails of their mushroom clouds. The minimal photographs and historical information that contextualizes them become a metaphor for the limits of human vision in the development and deployment of nuclear weapons.
Brandon Bauer is an Associate Professor of Art at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. A multidisciplinary artist, he explores questions of social justice, democracy, and war through photography, video, collage, drawing, and installation. Bauer completed his BFA in painting from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (1996), his MA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2008), and his MFA in Intermedia from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2010). He has exhibited work nationally and internationally, including at the Aces(s) electronic media festival, Pau, France; the European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruck, Germany; Godschalx Gallery, St. Norbert College, De Pere, WI; Caestecker Gallery, Ripon College, Ripon, WI; and Project 101, Paris, France. Screenings of his video work were included at the Carnival of e-Creativity, Shillong, India; Experiments in Cinema, Albuquerque, New Mexico; and at FILMIDEO, Newark, New Jersey.
