On April 3, 2025 BFF Gallery, the new museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art, will open in Milan inside Casa BFF, the headquarters of BFF Bank designed by OBR - Open Building Research.
BFF Gallery is a gesture of responsibility towards the community and towards the cultural heritage of our country, and stems from the desire to give back to society part of the value that BFF generates.
Free of charge, the museum aims to create a new appreciation for art as a stimulus for innovation, and a virtuous system of exchange and sharing of knowledge that encourages dialogue and offers the public a complete, accessible program of high scientific value.
"BFF Gallery was born from the desire to create, within Casa BFF, a space that favors the connection between people and the transmission of knowledge" - says Massimiliano Belingheri, CEO of BFF Banking Group. "We decided to do this through a museum, starting from the modern and contemporary art collection that has accompanied BFF's history since the beginning. We hope that everyone who visits this new place will rediscover art as a unique tool for dialoguing with others and for stimulating innovation and growth".
The exhibition "Baj + Milton 'Paradiso Perduto' i paradossi della libertà", curated by Maria Alicata and Giovanni Carrada, will inaugurate the space. On display the complete series of forty etchings created by Enrico Baj to illustrate John Milton's Paradise Lost, published in 1987 in a book by Mastrogiacomo editore with an introduction, selection and translations of some verses by Roberto Sanesi. These are among Baj's less-known projects and it enhances his relationship with literature.
Through the artist's imagination and his unique style, the forty etchings retrace some of the central themes of Milton's work - who, in more than 10, 000 verses, tells the story of the origins of Humanity from the creation of Adam to the expulsion from Eden - offering an opportunity to reflect on the human condition and the paradoxes that challenge many of our spontaneous intuitions about freedom.
The exhibition is introduced by some of evocative silhouettes that are part of the Apocalypse (1978-2001), a work by the same artist, thanks to the collaboration with the Enrico Baj Archive in Vergiate.
BFF Gallery project is in line with other initiatives that the Group has undertaken in recent years. These include the exhibition of Baj's Paradise Lost in Lisbon, at the Palácio Galveias Library, the last stop of a traveling exhibition in Europe as part of the Art Factor project, featuring some works from BFF collection.
BFF Banking Group contemporary art collection was started in the 1980s and today includes about 250 works by artists such as Valerio Adami, Franco Angeli, Enrico Baj, Alberto Burri, Alik Cavaliere, Hsiao Chin, Lucio Del Pezzo, Lucio Fontana, Gianfranco Pardi, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Giò Pomodoro, Mario Schifano, Emilio Tadini, Joe Tilson and many others. Since 2021, the Italian art collection has been the subject - in addition to the Art Factor project - of two art books and a traveling exhibition in the United States, under the patronage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Ministry of Culture.
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The partners of the exhibition are Dotdotdot, who curated the exhibition and graphic design, and Open Care - Servizi per l'Arte for logistics, conservation and restoration. Reading Room is the editorial curator of the library: a selection of magazines reflecting contemporary trends in the cultural, artistic and design fields, available for consultation. Artemide is the project's lighting partner.
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BFF Bank S.p.A. is the largest specialized finance company and a leader in Securities Services and payment services in Italy. The Group, founded in 1985, operates in Italy, Croatia, France, Greece, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Spain, offering factoring and lending services. Since 2017 it has been listed on the main market of the Italian Stock Exchange.
Casa BFF, designed by Paolo Brescia and Tommaso Principi of OBR – Open Building Research, is part of a process of progressive renewal of the BFF Banking Group's work environments. Characterized by LEED Platinum and WELL Gold certification, it is also a broader city project, designed to contribute to the regeneration and development of the Portello, a historic district of the city. The building aims to create a strong link with the urban context: set back from the road alignment, it is designed to be the backdrop to a new square open to all, overlooked by the entrance hall, the auditorium and the BFF Gallery, dedicated to the works of contemporary art that the Bank has collected since the 1980s. The piazza is also defined by a 40-meter-high portico that supports the large energy-efficient roof, the so-called "Flying Carpet": a regular geometric figure that is perfectly recognizable from above on the city map.