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In his artwork, David Bayus consistently addresses crises and the ways they shape our lives and social organizations. Whereas previously he has done so on a macroscopic scale, through science fiction fantasies of global pandemics and the end of the universe, in his most recent animated film, Performance Anxiety, Bayus presents a psychological crisis in the private, domestic context of a romantic partnership. Specifically, he playfully paints the portrait of a married man,who suffers a crisis of confidence in the wake of a fight with his wife and descends into paranoid fantasies of her infidelity with another menacing man.
The film is composed, uniquely, in the style of movies from the 1940’s and 1950’s, with Art Deco sets and song and dance numbers. One scene re-stages Patti Page’s performance of the song, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” while another employs motion-capture data extracted from a Gene Kelly tap dance routine. The film is also decidedly surreal, depicting a haunting, almost nightmarish dreamscape, vaguely reminiscent of David Lynch. Through the ordeal of his dreaming, the protagonist both indulges his paranoid fantasies of humiliation and revenge, while also working through the conflicts that plague him, and rediscovering his lover as a supportive ally and companion.
Along with telling a personal story of insecurity, anger, and the difficulties in love, the film speaks to generational changes in romantic relationships, the politics of domestic labor, and contemporary uncertainties about the role of men in a post-feminist world. In conjunction with the film, the exhibition includes a new painting and a new sculpture that speak to similar themes.
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