For digital natives of the first hour, some of Christian Bär's paintings are likely to evoke a nostalgic longing. Especially those in which strokes – or more precisely: certain stroke patterns – can be seen that are immediately reminiscent of early computer graphics programmes such as Microsoft Paint. The uniqueness of the early digital strokes was that they were unintentionally scribbly, individual lines were interrupted for no reason, indeed they looked like the first attempts at a drawing that would never become one but would remain at the intersection of art and procrastination.

Digital natives stand before a painting like Neo-Cowboy by Christian Bär thus like Caspar David Friedrich's monk in front of the sea: gazing longingly into an expanse believed lost. If the 90s aesthetics of digital line work refers to anything, it is to a time when cyberspace was still unfounded and largely unsettled; when its use still opened up possibilities and utopias and was associated with a democratic hope. –– Annekathrin Kohout