MILAN, ITALY – “Ugo Mulas, The Process of Photography” is an extensive and detailed retrospective showcasing the work of one of Milan’s most revered artists, born in 1928 and passed in 1973, currently at Palazzo Reale from until February 2025. A reinterpretation of the work of the great photographer, to whom the city is paying an extraordinary homage.
Ugo Mulas | Autoritratto con Nini A Melina e Valentina – 1972
The Municipality of Milan promoted the exhibition, which was produced by Palazzo Reale and Marsilio Arte in collaboration with the Ugo Mulas Archive, with the support of Deloitte and the patronage of the Deloitte Foundation. Denis Curti, Director of Le Stanze della Fotografia in Venice, and Alberto Salvadori, Director of the Ugo Mulas Archive, curated it.
300 images – many of which were never displayed before now – vintage photos, documents, books and films, look back over Ugo Mulas’ entire compendium: from theatre to fashion, from portraits of international artists, protagonists of American Pop Art, to those of intellectuals, architects and personalities from the world of culture and entertainment – including Dino Buzzati, Giorgio de Chirico, Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Arthur Miller, Eugenio Montale, Louise Nevelson, Salvatore Quasimodo, Giorgio Strehler and Andy Warhol – from the various locations and cities to nudes and jewellery.
Ugo Mulas | Fausto Melotti Sette savi – 1970
Ugo Mulas | Scenografia per Woyzeck – 1969
The subtitle of the exhibition, “The Process of Photography” draws its inspiration from one of the most important series created by Mulas, the Verifiche (1968-1972), with which the retrospective opens: fourteen works that came about as a result of the artist’s rigorous conceptual reflection on the history of photography and its constituent elements.
For the first time, in the rooms of Palazzo Reale, also on display together with the Verifiche are the studies that preceded them, forming genuine evidence that still today provides us with the keys to interpret and enter the aesthetic and conceptual universe of Ugo Mulas. A sort of mapping of photography that has a homage to Niépce, Verifica 1, to whom the exhibition will devote particular attention, as its point of departure.
Ugo Mulas | Tessuti Taroni – 1970
Also on display for the first time are many portraits of the most important protagonists of the design, architecture and art of the second half of the 20th century who are associated with the city of Milan, including Gae Aulenti, Giulio Castelli, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Vittorio Gregotti, Bruno Munari, Gio Ponti and Ettore Sottsass, along with several images of sculptor Fausto Melotti, a dear friend of Ugo Mulas, to whom an entire section is devoted.
Along the exhibition route, structured into 14 themed chapters (Verifiche, Duchamp, Fontana, Calder, Melotti, Theatre, Milan, Places, Portraits, Fashion, Nudes and Jewellery, New York/Pop, Interior/Exterior, Vitality of the Negative), the profile emerges of a total photographer, who tackled many different subjects over the course of his brief, intense experience, with the awareness that photography is not mere documentation, but testimony and critical interpretation of reality.
Ugo Mulas | Edie Sedgwick e Andy Warhol New York – 1964
“With this retrospective, Milan pays homage not only to a great photographer, but also to a man who knew how to capture and convey the soul of this continually evolving city,” says Tommaso Sacchi, Councillor Responsible for Culture.
“Ugo Mulas, in fact, will permanently join the exhibition in the new itinerary of the Museum of the 20th Century, which we will inaugurate in the next few days, precisely on account of his interpretation of the artistic life of the city in what were fundamental years for Milan: those of the Bar Jamaica, of Piero Manzoni and Luciano Bianciardi, of Lucio Fontana and the Funerals of Nouveau Realisme.
But not only that: other museums in the city will also host a selection of photographs by Mulas, offering an itinerary that will include the key locations of his life and works, thus continuing the itinerary outside of the rooms of Palazzo Reale.”
Ugo Mulas | Bar Jamaica Milano – 1953-1954
The visual documentation by Ugo Mulas represents a precious contribution to the understanding of the cultural and artistic history of that period, telling of the economic and social fervour of Milan in the second half of the 20th century.
Evidenced in his first photos from 1953 of the district of Brera and the famous Bar Jamaica, a meeting place for extraordinary personalities such as Piero Manzoni or Luciano Bianciardi, and the photos of the suburbs, the Central Station, dormitories and everyday moments.
Ugo Mulas | Sala di Michelangelo Pistoletto Vitalità del negativo nell’arte italiana – 1970
The exhibition is part of a project to present the work of the great photographer to the public, the first stage of which took place in Venice, at Le Stanze della Fotografia, in 2023. The programme continues in October 2024 in Milan, where the exhibition is presented with an itinerary and an approach that are entirely unprecedented and specially designed for the city, thanks to the in-depth research work into the author’s production that has enabled photos never exhibited before to be unearthed.
by Chidozie Obasi