Fantasy in power in the art of Enrico Baj

There is an irreverent and anarchic dimension in Enrico Baj's art that blends with a playful and imaginative spirit. On the occasion of the centenary of his birth, Palazzo Reale pays homage to an artist who lived his time to the full, demonstrating a strong civic commitment and frequenting Italian and foreign poets and writers with whom he collaborated, creating artist's books, accompanied by original prints or multiples. A love for artist's prints that had never abandoned him, so much so that shortly before his death, in 2001 he had started a new project dedicated to the stories of Gilgamesh, King of the Sumerians.
Painting for Enrico Baj was combined with the pleasure of using all sorts of materials. From the series imbued with a marked critical spirit towards contemporaneity, such as Generali and Military Parades of the 1960s, to the more fantastical ones such as Metamorfosi and Metafore of the 1980s, we arrive at the cycle of Tribal Masks, made with the waste of modern civilization to create ironic masks: the exhibition is a journey into a colorful and imaginative universe.