Milan, at Dellupi Arte an exhibition compares Karel Appel and Enrico Baj

The works of Karel Appel (Amsterdam, 1921 - Zurich, 2006) and Enrico Baj (Milan, 1924 - Vergiate, 2003) compared in an exhibition in Milan at the Dellupi Arte gallery from Oct. 27 to Dec. 1, 2022: it is Karel Appel - Enrico Baj, presenting for the first time together an important nucleus of works by these two artists. The exhibition will place a selection of a dozen works in dialogue, suggesting visual affinities, color associations and recurring elements in the poetics of these two artists.

Traces of figurality are a constant element in Karel Appel’s canvases, in which the power and physicality of color amplify the expressiveness of the pictorial material. Significant works from the CoBrA period such as The Nurse and Bird, Children and Flowers, both from 1950, are exemplary of a new figurativeness of expressionistic origin that strongly influenced European artistic culture. Also on view are other important works from the 1950s, where faces and figurative signs break down to become abstract elements. Pictorial impasto prevails on the canvas, as in the works Untitled of 1956 or Two Heads with a Landscape of 1958, which are characterized by the materiality of pigments and powerful, decisive brushstrokes.

In Enrico Baj’s characters, the transformation of the figure is transformed into a fairy-tale-grotesque iconography, recreated through materiality and polymaterism. Starting from pictorial works, Baj develops the technique of collage, creating iconic assemblages of fabrics, medals, trimmings and small objects applied to the surface of the painting. His art is open to all kinds of materials, condensing in his subjects tragic and grotesque, lyrical and playful, revealing a strong civil commitment and critique of contemporaneity. Ironic and sarcastic works, such as The King and the Queen in 1960 or Count Suwarow Rymnisky with his aide-de-camp during the Russian campaign in 1965, are also a portrait of modern culture.

Merging figuration and abstraction in an unprecedented and powerfully evocative language, Appel and Baj gave birth to new forms of expression, creating works that are exuberant, immediate, and charged with vitality.

The exhibition, with free admission, can be visited by appointment. For information www.dellupiarte.com.

Milan, at Dellupi Arte an exhibition compares Karel Appel and Enrico Baj

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