Description
Baj Enrico (1924 – 2003)
Baj Enrico, Italian avant-garde painter, was born in Milan in 1924. After initial studies in medicine, which he left, he became a lawyer and, at the same time, artist. In the early fifties, Baj founded with Sergio Dangelo the movement of Nuclear Art, in opposition to abstract art. In 1954, together with Asger Jorn, he founded The International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, siding against the excessive geometrization of art and the rule of the straight line. Baj’s work is focused on different periods, all of them characterized by the rejection of violence and the degradation of contemporary society. In the early works the attention to playful subjects and the research on materials is predominant, while in his following works, Baj manifests the fears arising from the events of World War II. His art became metaphors of the anti-militarism, as evidenced by the Generals: military figures representing the brutality of power, but made clumsy and ridiculous from the compositions of materials. In Baj’s works clearly emerges his affinity with the movement of the Nouveau Realists: his collages are in fact the result of an everyday search of different materials. During the seventies, he created some of his greatest works, inspired by current political events, as The Funeral of the Anarchist Pinelli, also inspired by a work of Carrà. Close to artists and personalities from the world of culture, from Duchamp to Umberto Eco, Baj was also interested in theater, collaborating in set design and marionette realization for worldwide renowned shows. All-round artist, he also dedicated to writing, working for avant-garde magazines and newspapers and publishing several books. Enrico Baj died in Varese, Italy, in 2003. His works are exhibited in major museums around the world as representation of movement of the Italian avant-garde movement.
