Since its foundation, UniFor has consistently supported and promoted culture. Once again, it partners with Electa and Palazzo Reale for the "BAJ. Baj chez Baj" exhibition, being held from October 8, 2024, to February 9, 2025, at Palazzo Reale, to realise the set-up designed by architect Umberto Zanetti - ZDA Zanetti Design Architettura.
To mark the centenary of Enrico Baj's birth, Milan celebrates one of the masters of Italian and international neo-avant-garde with a comprehensive retrospective curated by Chiara Gatti and Roberta Cerini Baj. Sponsored by the Municipality of Milan's Department of Culture and produced by Palazzo Reale in collaboration with Electa, the exhibition begins with Baj's early gestural abstraction, moves through the emergence of his larval anthropomorphic figures, and explores the eruption of liquefied mountains in the magmatic body of the Generals. It also touches on the parody of extraterrestrial invasions, culminating in the Meccano army and the animated world of drawers and trumeaux.
Twelve years after the exhibition of I Funerali dell'anarchico Pinelli (The Funeral of the Anarchist Pinelli) in the Sala delle Cariatidi, the work returns to the same hall, now integrated for the first time into an anthology that situates it within Baj's poetic vision and the spirit of the time. The themes of Baj's poetics, liberated from a rigid chronological or genre sequence and interwoven with continuous references between art and literature, colours and words, follow a kind of script that evokes a theatrical time and space for the viewer.
The installation, designed by architect Umberto Zanetti and made by UniFor, brings the curatorial vision to life and harmonizes with its rich surroundings. This complex and distinctive space is one that Zanetti and UniFor have previously tackled for the "Gabriele Basilico. Le mie città " exhibition.
'Creating an exhibition installation is always like writing a story. For an Enrico Baj exhibition, especially a comprehensive and diverse retrospective like this one at Palazzo Reale, marking 100 years since his birth, it feels like writing and illustrating a marvelous, fantastical, imaginative, playful, ironic, and surreal book,' says Umberto Zanetti, ZDA Zanetti Design Architettura
The layout consists of three sections spread across different spaces: the entrance Apse, the central Plaza, and the Lake of Sculptures. The self-supporting exhibition structure, created by UniFor, features a metal frame supporting a series of panels of varying heights, both vertical and inclined, made of poplar plywood left in its 'natural state'. This neutral backdrop contrasts with and highlights the richness of materials and colours typical of Baj's works.
'The vertical elements of the base touching the ground and the ends between the pairs of panels are coated with a 'mirror' finish, making the partitions appear to float above the patterned terrazzo floor, as if dancing in the space of the Sala delle Cariatidi,' says Umberto Zanetti, ZDA Zanetti Design Architettura.
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