Fire! Fire! (1963-4)
Enrico Baj (1924 - 2003)
Fire! Fire!, 1963-4
oil paint on canvas
128.6 cm × 97.2 cm
Tate Modern
There’s about 1,200 works of art currently on display at the Tate Modern. Pick any random room and you’ll see big names and big works and big works by big names. It’s filled with influential, inspiring and iconic art, but by far my favourite piece in the entire gallery is “Fire! Fire!” by some guy named Enrico Baj. I’d never heard of Baj before I saw this work, which hangs on the 4th floor as part of their Materials and Objects collection, and I’ve never seen anything else by the artist. But more than any other work that I can ever remember, this one never ceases to overwhelm me with pure, childlike joy.
It always makes me smile. It always makes me laugh. It always makes me mad that my mom gave away all my Lego to my California cousins after I left for uni / college. Triggering that last memory is Baj’s use of Meccano, the European equivalent of my American childhood Erector Sets. Both were a more advanced engineering toy that wasn’t nearly as fun to play with as those little plastic bricks. Baj has attached Meccano pieces to the woven fabric canvas in order to accentuate the features of his absurd, unscary character. I truly believe this guy is alive, patiently biding his time before he jumps out of the canvas to chase me around the gallery. I suspect we’d both be giggling and screaming like crazy as it happened.
If you do an image search on Enrico Baj you’ll see dozens of similarly structured works. Wide-eye cartoony characters, painted on patterned fabric, often with raised fists and gap-fanged, wide-open mouths. None give me the same childlike wonder as the one in the Tate. Maybe it’s because it’s the first I’ve seen, though that’s not always the case with art and artists. There’s just something different, something special about “Fire! Fire!”. I think it all comes down to the “Boo!” that I hear in my head when I see this work. I imagine it sounds like a young boy who’s jumped out to scare his sister.
Unlike “Fire! Fire!” many of Baj’s characters appear to be in the military. He was born in Italy in 1924 and grew up surrounded by Fascism. He was rebellious from an early age and moved to Geneva when he was 20 to avoid conscription into Mussolini’s army. He’s frequently associated with the anarchist movement, made many works addressing politics and anti-militarism, and co-founded a movement he termed arte nucleare. But what I suspect he’d most appreciate is that every bio and obituary that I’ve read mentions the humour to be found in his art.
I go to the Tate Modern a lot. Sometimes I’ll specifically seek out this work, and sometimes I completely forget all about it. Then I’ll stumble upon it again, and it will make me stop and smile and once again I’ll enjoy being filled with childlike wonder.
That’s why I like it.
It scares me silly.
Previously, on Why I Like It:
Aug — Self (2001), Marc Quinn
Jul — Red Radish / Scalion (2012), Jen Violette
Jun — Babel (2001), Cildo Meireles