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Baj Enrico

Baj Enrico

((Italy) 1924)

In evidence
  • Solo show at a major institution - MCA Chicago
  • Collected by major institutions - Tate, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
  • Included in major biennials - Venice Biennale International Exhibition, Berlin Biennale
  • Among the greatest Italian masters of the 20th Century
  • Reviewed by a major art publication - The Guardian, Art in America

Enrico Baj was born in Milan on October 31, 1924. He studied at the Accademia di Brera. In 1951, along with Sergio Dangelo and Gianni Dova, he promoted the Nuclear Art Movement, and held his first solo exhibition in Milan at the Galleria San Fedele. Upon meeting Asger Jorn in 1953, the two founded the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, which reacted against the forced rationalization and geometry of art. The following year, Baj organized the International Ceramics Meetings at Albisola in Liguria, Italy.

Baj’s artistic experiments resulted in multicolored collages made from many different materials. On the one hand, his work emphasises the joyful experience of painting with diverse materials; however, it also provides a social commentary and strong criticism of contemporary society. Such is the case of his Generali and Parate militari series from the 1960s, and even more so in his works from the 1970s, like I funerali dell’anarchico Pinelli (1972) and Apocalisse (1979). In the 1980s he temporarily abandoned collage and made a series of works called Metamorfosi e Metafore (1988) in which his images were based on imagination and fantasy. In 1993, he started his Maschere tribali cycle, which consist of used waste materials of modern civilization, assembled to create ironic and brightly colored masks. These pieces were followed by the Feltri (1993-98) and Totem (1997) series.

Throughout his life, Baj was in close contact with poets and intellectuals, both in Italy and abroad, and collaborated on numerous occasions to produce prints or original multiples for several artist books. In 1999, he once again reconfirmed his strong links to literature by producing a series of 164 portraits inspired by the Guermantes of Marcel Proust. He also collaborated with many artists, including Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni. In 2001, he started a series of works dedicated to the history of Gilgamesh, the King of the Sumerians. Enrico Baj died in Vergiate, near Varese, in Italy, on June 16, 2003.

(an extract from: https://www.guggenheim-venice.it/it/arte/artisti/enrico-baj/ )

  • GENEVIÈVE PREMOY DETTA LA CAVALIERA BALTHASAR

    GENEVIÈVE PREMOY DETTA LA CAVALIERA BALTHASAR, 1975

    cm 100x70, Screenprint and collage

    3,000.00 EUR

  • Guerriero

    Guerriero, 1970

    cm 70x50, Colour etching with collage

  • La principessa Caterina Romanovna Vorontsova Dashkova

    La principessa Caterina Romanovna Vorontsova Dashkova, 1975

    cm 86x69.3, Color Lithography and Mixed Media

  • Antoinette du Ligier de la Garde Deshouliére

    Antoinette du Ligier de la Garde Deshouliére, 1975

    cm 89.5x69.5, Color Lithography and Mixed Media

  • Dama Marrone

    Dama Marrone, 1985

    cm 100x70, Etching on paper and collage

    2,200.00 EUR