Enrico Baj 
Introduction
Enrico Baj (1924-2003) Italy
Enrico Baj, born to middle-class Italian parents, studied law and took classes at the Academia di Brera in Milan from 1945 to 1948. In 1951, he founded the Arte Nucleare movement with a style of painting close to Tachism. After travelling abroad, particularly in Paris, and meeting the Cobra Group, he focused his art on figures, developing a style redolent with wit and irony. In 1955, he began his first assemblages and collages, using found materials such as buttons, lace, braid, and fragments of mirror, which he stuck on fabric to create a baroque, carnavalesque world peopled with aliens, tin-pot generals, and colourfully dressed ladies. In 1957, Baj co-authored the manifesto Against Style with Klein, Arman, and Manzoni. His oeuvre, close in spirit to the Pataphysician movement, explores the grotesque monstrosity of power with an acid wit that underscores the futility of human vanity.
In 1960, he took part in painting the Large Collective Anti-Fascist Painting, measuring four by five metres, along with Dova, Crippa, Erró, Lebel, and Recalcati. The work was shown at the Anti-Trial against the Algerian War and against torture in Milan in 1961. His major installation, Apocalypse (1978-1983), is a virulent attack on society, denouncing pollution and self-destruction. He also produced satirical political paintings such as Berluskaiser (1994), a witty rendering of Berlusconi, reminiscent of works by Alfred Jarry.
Libertarians mourned his death in 2003.