Riflessioni sulle relazioni tra Sergio Dangelo e E.L.T. Mesens nel secondo dopoguerra: dal Surrealismo al Dadaismo (attraverso Schwitters)

This paper aims to retrace the relationship between the painter Sergio Dangelo (Milan, 1932-2022) – founder, together with Enrico Baj, of the Nuclear Art movement – and the Belgian surrealist artist Édouard Léon Théodore Mesens (Brussels, 1903 1971) between the 1950s and 1960s. In a vibrant context open to new national and international artistic experiments, Mesens, in the post-war period, had come into contact in Italy with a young generation of politically engaged artists, interested in the legacy of the avant-garde and working with various media, including painting and collage. The study will retrace Dangelo’s artistic research, highlighting both his interest in Surrealism and his peculiar adherence to Dadaist languages and practices: movements in which Mesens had been involved throughout his long career and which he had rediscovered in the 1940s through the artistic practice of Kurt Schwitters.