Enrico Baj

Celebrating the artist's centennial with additional works by Richard Artschwager, Hans Bellmer, Kerstin Brätsch, William Copley, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Nicole Eisenman, Asger Jorn, Martin Kippenberger, Jonathan Meese, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and others

Enrico Baj (1924-2003) was one of the central figures of the Italian neo-avant-garde. His art and writings played an instrumental role in influential movements, from Dada and Surrealism to Art Informel and CoBrA, as well as the Nuclear Art movement, which he cofounded in Milan in 1951. Heir to the Surrealist-Dadaist spirit, and an experimenter in original techniques and styles, he departed from gestural abstraction in the mid-1950s and honed an idiosyncratic iconography for his paintings, drawings, collages, objects, and sculptures, defiantly embracing figuration and kitsch symbols, and subverting conventions.

Titled after Alterego e altre ipotesi, a publication which Enrico Baj designed in collaboration with Italian poet and art critic Roberto Sanesi in 1970, this exhibition features Baj's work in dialogue with artists who influenced his oeuvre, and with artists from younger generations with whom we’d like to imagine him in conversation today.

During his life, Enrico Baj connected with Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, Asger Jorn, Man Ray, William Copley, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia, Lucio Fontana, and Piero Manzoni, among others; his art influenced younger artists such as Martin Kippenberger, Mike Kelley, and Jonathan Meese. Ever since his participation in the Venice Biennale in 1964, Baj’s artwork has been exhibited in all the major European museums and frequently in the United States since 1960.

This year, one hundred years after Baj's birth, several museums in Italy are paying homage to the master of Dames and Generals, of Meccanoes and Body Snatchers; the irreverent genius, light-hearted anarchist, and pataphysical artist. From October 2024 through January 2025, Palazzo Reale in Milan will be featuring Baj's art through the words of the great writers of the 20th century who intertwined their words with his lyrical and caustic images, from André Breton to Raymond Queneau, from Marcel Proust to Italo Calvino, from Edoardo Sanguineti to Umberto Eco.