Bauer's modernist perversions

There's a recurring device used in these works by German painter Michael Bauer. It's as if the heroically bold design styles of early modernism were laid out tastefully, but then incontinently defiled by being used as a toilet by a dog. Every painting is defined by horrible leakings - by wet stains, or worse disfigurements. Bauer's modernism seems to be that of an esoteric 'spiritual world' - with the optimism of a cheerfully happy Paul Klee which is then ruined by a drunk Francis Bacon or nightmarish Max Ernst. In this way, Bauer piles meanings onto meanings, in an epic battle between aesthetic order and nihilism.