MAXXI, rome, italy
december 4th, 2007 - march 2nd, 2008
http://www.darc.beniculturali.it/MAXXI/english/mostre.htm

ugo mulas's photography, as his brief notes clearly
indicate, requires no comments, essays or introductions,
and still less interpretations. it just is. indeed it explains.

‘I started this job by chance. I was a student and I
frequented the giamaica, a former dairy turned into a sort
of café and a meeting point of painters.
someone lent me an old camera and told me:
‘F11 at 1/100 in the sun, F5.6 at 1/25 in the shadow’.
and I took this camera with a great diffidence’ .
by chance is obviously a way of saying, yet absolutely right,
if you mean by chance what happens to you,
what comes into you while you are waiting for it.’

in a long, uninterrupted act of love for artists, even more
than for art, he tells a story of ideas and visions through
a few exemplary moments.
like that of lucio fontana in action, in the sequence in which
he is making one of his cuts; unforgettable the series of
pictures of calder.
that mulas never missed the target is demonstrated by his
many irreplaceable, definitive portraits.
his are the images leaving an enduring memory,
of duchamp, giacometti, morandi, melotti, sironi, and de chirico.
add words and you sulty the image.

mulas wrote to explain the reasons for his trip to new york:
'in 1964 I went for a few months to america, out of a
necessity of my own, for no one had sent me there.
I felt the need to go after visiting the venice biennale,
where there were johns, dine, oldenburg, rauschenberg,
stella and chamberlain.
at first, I was more stupefied than convinced in the united
states; then I was won over, as it was not just a question
of making contact with a certain kind of painting, but of
entering the world of the painters, and at the same time
of sharing an extraordinary moment of being a witness to
something really important at the moment in which it was
happening and catching on.
I had already taken pictures of artists, but I had felt like I
was photographing survivors.
if anything I would have liked to photograph them in 1910,
in 1912: then it would have had a meaning, while now all I
was doing was recording their physical survival as
personalities.'

the secret of mulas’ relation with the artists, the others,
and of his attempt to understand them, that is of his own
chance to be himself a true artist.
mulas wants to capture the form created by the single
artist in order to understand his work and personality and,
through them, his own personality and that of photography,
his medium and language.

the exhibitions about ugo mulas' career show along with
portraits of artists, some printed films reveal how many
and which proofs had been taken before choosing the
‘right’ one. on display also the experimental series of
‘verifiche’ and some images of milan during the '50s.

---
short biography
ugo mulas was born on 28th of august in pozzolengo,
near desenzano del garda (brescia) in italy.
he completes his classical studies in desenzano.

in 1948 he goes to milan where he enrols in law but he
leaves his legal studies to follow some courses at brera
fine arts academy.
he goes regularly to the giamaica bar, in via brera,
a meeting place of artists and intellectuals and becomes
interested in photography.

he obtains his first professional assignement as photographer
in 1954 when he is asked to cover the venice art biennale.
during those years he photographs milan's deprived areas,
suburbs and the waiting room of the city's train station.
he shots advertising and fashion photographs and photo
reportage for magazines and newspapers but his main
interest is art world.

he documents every venice biennale through 1972
photographing its most important moments - such as
alberto giacometti's protest at the award ceremony in 1962
or the success of american artists in 1964.
at the 1964 biennale he meets the art critic alan solomon,
the art dealer leo castelli and many other pop art american
artists. he decides immediately to leave for new york.
his first trip in 1964 is followed by other visits to the city in
1965 and 1967, during which he puts together an
extraordinary body of images that document new york
art world.

in 1970 he falls seriously ill and he starts his last series
of photos ‘le verifiche’ (verifications) in the same year.
he dies on 2nd march 1973 in milan.

archive ugo mulas
http://www.ugomulas.org