Charm. Figures of the imagination (1951-2003)

Catalog created for the exhibition “Baj. Figures of the imagination (1951-2003)”, Art Museum of Palazzo Gavotti, Savona, 26 September – 13 December 2015.

The first work on display is Quamisado 2, nuclear painting of the 1951. Closes the path Punching General, sculpture of 2003. In this period of time all Baj experiments are included, All his studies, his writings e, mostly, his paintings: an uninterrupted job that brought creatures and characters to Epiphany (Sometimes real sagas or theatrical compositions) oriented to theonical, to the tragic, at the satirical, to the surreal, to the political and civil commitment. Each exhibition (self -respecting) It is a story that develops through works and in some cases documents; story supported by a basic idea, a criterion of choice and narration. Due to the profound nature of their author, Baj's works tell and already speak a lot in themselves: Enrico Baj has always worked together with the subject, Together with the gesture, together with the materials, image and imagination. Has conquered the flow of the game through the hands and from these to the colors, to the most disparate objects combined, with painting, in iconographic universes, almost always iconological. But beyond this sort of "subsidized reading" of Baj's poetic narrative, that everyone can experiment, We necessarily had to select a great thematic or mythological strand within the vast production of the artist who, We want to remember it, it was not limited to painting, assembly or sculpture, But since the early years he also turned to incision and writing: languages ​​never abandoned and always taken up again, together with the others.
For this exhibition we have chosen to tell the work and vision of Baj's world through precise figures: children, personages (wooden), dame, meccano, totem and masks. We also decided to exclude the famous and well -known "generals" in favor of "a general": the last.
Taken from the introduction of Luca Bochicchio