11 October 2024

Enrico Baj on display at the Palazzo Reale in Milan

One of the masters of the Italian and international neo-avant-garde, returns to Palazzo Reale in the Sala delle Cariatidi until February 9, 2025

Milan pays homage to Enrico Baj (Milan, 31 October 1924 - Vergiate, 16 June 2003), a central figure of the Italian and international neo-avant-garde, with a vast retrospective that traces the salient moments of his multifaceted career. One hundred years after his birth, Baj returns to Palazzo Reale, in the evocative Sala delle Cariatidi, a place that had already hosted him twelve years ago with the exhibition of 'The Funeral of the anarchist Pinelli', a work now an integral part of an anthological itinerary.

The initiative, promoted by the Municipality of Milan-Culture and organized by Palazzo Reale with Electa, is curated by Chiara Gatti and Roberta Cerini Baj and presents about fifty selected works covering a period of time from the fifties to the early 2000s. The exhibition allows us to explore Baj's various artistic phases, from the first adhesions to Dadaism and Surrealism to Informal art, without forgetting the Co.Br.A movement and Baj's role as co-founder of the Nuclear art movement together with Sergio Dangelo, in 1951.

From the first abstract experiments, we move on to the creation of the famous anthropomorphic figures and the visionary representations of the Generals, with their liquid mountains, to arrive at the parody of extraterrestrial invasions, the army of Meccano, and the animated universe of chests of drawers and trumeau.

The protagonists of his visionary world - from Ladies to Generals, from Mirrors to Furniture to Body Snatchers - populate this retrospective that explores irony and the grotesque, two key elements of Baj's language, with which he was able to dismantle bourgeois conformism and oppose any form of established power.

Baj's characteristic aesthetic, with the use of trinkets, trimmings, tassels and buttons, reflects a sophisticated poetics of decoration, which is expressed across art and literature, colors and words. The exhibition, without a rigid chronological sequence, offers the public an immersive experience, suggesting a theatrical atmosphere that accompanies the visitor through the kaleidoscopic creative universe of the Milanese master.

In the Skylight room is exhibited the scenographic reconstruction of the Apocalypse, an assembly of imaginary and dreamlike figures in a polyptych of almost 100 square meters, set up in height, dotted with clumsy and mocking demons, climbing and screaming up to the ceiling. After this introduction, which welcomes visitors, there are the Nuclear Works, the Body Snatchers, the Parades, the funerals of the anarchist Pinelli, the Generals, the Meccanos, the Furniture, the Mirrors and the Ladies. There are ten sections of the exhibition and they alternate in a game of mirrors and site-specific solutions.

About the exhibition

BAJ. BajchezBaj

Where: Palazzo Reale, Piazza del Duomo 12 - Milan. When: from 8 October to 9 February 2025. Royal Palace opening hours: closed on Mondays; Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday: 10:00 a.m.-7.30 p.m., Thursday: 10:00 a.m.-10.30 p.m. Last admission one hour before the exhibition closes. Information, reservations and presales: www.ticketone.it

By the editorial staff of Avion Tourism Magazine

Text source and text: Copyright Exhibition © Press Office and Municipality of Milan

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