Enrico baj artwork

Enrico baj tate
Enrico Baj was an Italian artist and writer on art.
A biography of the Italian anarchist and painter Enrico Baj. Well known in Italy, he was finally beginning to become known in France as well.

•

Enrico Baj

Italian painter, sculptor and writer (1924–2003)

Enrico Baj (31 October 1924 – 16 June 2003)^[1] was an Italian artist and writer on art. Many of his works show an obsession with nuclear war. He created prints, and sculptures but especially collage. He was close to the surrealist and dada movements, and was later associated with CoBrA. As an author, he has been described as a leading promoter of the avant-garde. He worked with Umberto Eco among other collaborators. He had a long interest in the pseudo-philosophy 'pataphysics.

Biography

He was born in Milan into a wealthy family, but left Italy in 1944 having upset the authorities and to avoid conscription. He studied at the Milan University law faculty and the Brera Academy of Art.

In 1951 he founded the arte nucleare movement with Sergio Dangelo, which unlike abstract art was overtly political. Baj himself was aligned with the anarchist movement. His most well-known pieces are probably the series of "Generals": absurd characters made from found objects such as belts or medals.

He m

•

Baj, Enrico, 1924-2003

Baj was devoted to anarchism and this expressed itself in his works. His vast canvases were beautiful and often funny. When it was exhibited in Italy in 1972, his Funeral of the Anarchist Pinelli (thrown from a police station window and made famous by Dario Fo's play Accidental Death of an Anarchist) led to police commissioners marching in and closing down the gallery.

Born into a well-to-do family in Milan on October 31st 1924, he exhibited a rebellious streak early on when, as a boy, he stood to mock attention in front of a fascist parade. He quit Italy to take refuge in Geneva in 1944 to avoid conscription into Mussolini’s army.

A good part of CIRA, the anarchist library in Lausanne, was constructed thanks to his generosity. He financed the first Russian translation and printing of Voline’s Unknown Revolution. Like other anarchist artists - Camille Pissarro, Paul Signac, Vlaminck and others - he gave away lithographs, objects and texts to comrades and allowed the free use of his works by them, as well as the use of his table and wine cellar!

He c

•

Lost

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 Movimento Arte Nucleare, 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 call