Enrico Baj: Alter Ego and Other Hypotheses
18 April – 31 May 2024
David Nolan Gallery
24 East 81 Street, New York
Associated with late Dada, Surrealism, and the neo-avant-garde, the nuclear-war-obsessed Enrico Baj (1924 - 2003) is celebrated in a centennial exhibition at David Nolan Gallery, which places a tight survey of the artist's oeuvre in dialogue with artists who influenced him -- Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Francis Picabia, Richard Artschwager, Jean Dubuffet, Indigenous American folk artists -- as well as artists from younger generations whom David Nolan imagines him in conversation with today, such as Nicole Eisenman, Martin Kippenberger, and Jonathan Meese.
Said David Nolan: "Baj’s oeuvre bears a distinctly political slant, most glaringly in his Generali motif, which is well-represented in the new exhibition. The Generali are pseudo-portraits of military generals, formulated from the details of a military uniform; Baj mocks the grandiose self-image of the military general, as well as the outrageous performance of aristocratic society."
More information is in the above-linked press release, and a preview of works on view is below. See the Dropbox folder linked above to download high-resolution image files. Artwork information is in each image’s file title.