The exhibition presents well twenty-six artists' books of the approximately fifty-six made by Henry Baj throughout his life. The works on display come mainly from the Baj Archive but there are also volumes preserved in the Braidense National Library and in the “Guido Ballo” Contemporary Art Library of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.
Subdivided in ten sections Classics and nuclear, Breton and Surrealism, Poets in Paris, Queneau and the combinatorial game, Nudes, robes, lace, Poets in Milan, La cravate ne vaut pas une médaille, Honors and honours, Bestiaries and monsters, Revival or art of memory – the exhibition will follow a chronological and thematic path.
The project, presented in 2022 as part of the Culture Commission ofBrera Academy of Fine Arts and immediately shared and supported by Braidense National Library, is significant not only for its historical-artistic relevance, but also because it represents a concrete symbol of the relations between the two institutions, opening up to further collaborations.
The curation of the exhibition and Baj's intellectual relationships
Curated by Angela Sanna, Michele Tavola and Marina Zetti, the exhibition will investigate this fundamental section of Baj's production starting from the first volumes created in the 1958s, first of all De Rerum Natura, from 2003, up to the last, On Water, published in XNUMX. Furthermore, his "dialogue" is highlighted at a distance" with the great authors of the past, from Lucretius to Martial to Lewis Carroll, and his "work in close contact" with international writers, poets and critics such as André Breton, Raymond Queneau, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Benjamin Péret, Jean -Clarence Lambert, Jorge Luis Borges, Édouard Jaguer, Joyce Mansour, Yvon Taillandier. Alongside these there are also prominent Italian authors such as Edoardo Sanguineti, Alda Merini, Roberto Sanesi, Guido Ballo, Giovanni Giudici.
