UGO MULAS
Portraits
“Photographing someone while he is doing something is like recording a fact, thus is to say reporting that fact. A portrait is, in a certain sense, something nobler than a reportage, as long as there would not be any reserve in it, or any pretence towards the entire project, which has to be as open, as direct as possible”
_Ugo Mulas. Ugo Mulas, La Fotografía, Roma, 1973
Ugo Mulas (1928-1973) was a major figure of twentieth century photography. Under the title Ugo Mulas. Portraits, the exhibition pays homage to this great observer and interpreter with a selected number of portraits about acclaimed artists such as Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti, Lucio Fontana, Fausto Melotti, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Roy Lichtestein, Giorgio Morandi, Barnett Newmann, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, John Cage or Jasper Jones among others.
LUCIO FONTANA
“I do not want to make a painting; I want to open up space, create a new dimension, tie in the cosmos, as it endlessly expands beyond the confinig plane of the picture.”
_Lucio Fontana
Lucio Fontana – L’Attesa, 1965
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
46 x 33 cm (image)
57,5 x 62,5 cm (framed)
Edition 34 of 50
“Fontana put his hand on the final part of the cut and in one of the pictures I have made Fontana’s hand blurred as he has completed the gesture right in that moment: it is impossible to realize that the picture is made on purpose, where the cut was preexisting.”
_Ugo Mulas
BARNETT NEWMAN
“When painters feel the need to make a shift towards self-discovery, they turn to black and white for a time.”
_Barnett Newman
Casa di Barnett Newman, New York, 1965
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
25 x 37 cm (image)
62.5 x 57.5 cm (framed)
Edition 2 of 28
Barnett Newman, New York, 1965
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
37 x 25 cm (image)
57.5 x 62.5 cm (framed)
Edition 3 of 28
“It is not helpful to photograph Newman while he is painting one of his big canvas in which two or three vertical lines divide the space, because anybody, looking at this work can perfectly figure out how it was done. It is more curious how meticulous he was arranging his studio before starting painting […] which reveals his psychological attitud of an extremely meticulous man, scrupulous about everything and as well about his way of dressing, very elegant and always in order.”
_Ugo Mulas
ANTONI TÀPIES
“I try, and in my paintings I do it consciously, not to lose that mysterious sense that reality has. Science has helped us to understand many things, but there are limits, and in those limits live the mystery.”
_Antoni Tàpies
Antoni Tàpies, Galleria dell’Ariete, Milano, 1958
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
38.5 x 25 cm (image)
57.5 x 62.5 cm (framed)
Edition 3 of 28
JASPER JOHNS
“To me, self-description is a calamity.”
_Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, New York, 1965
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
23 x 37 cm (image)
62.5 x.57,5 cm (framed)
Edition 4 of 28
Jasper Johns, New York, 1965
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
23 x 37 cm (image)
62.5 x 57.5 cm (framed)
Edition 4 of 28
“In another photograph by Johns it seems to me that the relationship that is established between photographer and painter is well expressed. It is Johns who paints a large picture: the light projects the silhouette of the painter revealing the hand and the brush in the form of a shadow, and therefore the gesture of painting. I didn’t feel like in such cases, always feeling the embarrassment of the intrusion in such a delicate moment. By photographing Johns from behind, I had found a way to record the moment in which the painting was born: strangely, after this photo, I no longer filmed painters in the act of painting: I understood that an ambiguous situation was created.”
_Ugo Mulas. La fotografia, 1973
Jasper Johns, Edisto Beach, 1965
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
24 x 35 cm (image)
62.5 x 57.5 cm (framed)
Edition 8 of 28
“I wish there were more humor in my work than I see in it.”
_Jasper Johns
JOHN CAGE
“I have nothing to say, and I am saying it.”
_John Cage
John Cage, New York, 1964
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
32 x 24 cm (image)
57.5 x 62.5 cm (framed)
Edition 3 of 28
ANDY WARHOL
“The reason I’m painting this way is that I want to be a machine, and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do.”
_Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol, Philip Fagan, Gerard Malanga, New York, 1964
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
24 x 37 cm (image)
62.5 x 57.5 cm (framed)
Edition 5 of 28
Andy Warhol, The Kiss, New York, 1964
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
46 x 36 cm (image)
57.5 x 62.5 cm (framed)
Edition 1 of 5
Andy Warhol, New York, 1964
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
37 x 25 cm (image)
57.5 x 62.5 cm (framed)
Edition 4 of 28
“Nobody has sent me to New York, I moved all by myself, I wanted to understand and to be a witness. I went through the Studios without speaking English at all, just saying those few essential words, trying not to be an hindrance or being heard or, yet, hampering what the artists were doing during their work.”
_Ugo Mulas
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
“My work isn’t about form. It’s about seeing. I’m excited about seeing things, and I’m interested in the way I think other people see things.”
_Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein. New York, 1964
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
30 x 40 cm (image)
62.5 x 57.5 cm (framed)
Edition 3 of 28
“When I photograph painters, I often try to go beyond the mere reportage, and I also try not to take the usual portrait, or the nice portrait, because what I’m interested of their own works.”
_Ugo Mulas
MARCEL DUCHAMP
“It is curious to note how fragile the memory is, even for the importanat times in one’s life. This is, moreover, what explains the fortunate fantasy of history.”
_Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp, 1972
10 Vintage gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board.
Box in plexiglass: 52 x 42 x 2 cm
PHotos: 39 x 49 cm (each image)
Edition 79 of 100
“I had already taken some pictures of Duchamp while he was playing chess but at the end I discarded them, because they were too discursive. I choose these pictures of Duchamp outside instead, with him sitting in front of this small table with a chessborad but whithout any chessmen; and furthermore Duchamp never looked at the chessboard.”
_Ugo Mulas
FAUSTO MELOTTI
“Art is an angelic, geometric feeling. It addresses the intellect, not the senses.”
_Fausto Melotti
Fausto Melotti, 1968-69
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
37 x 25 cm (image)
57.5 x 62.5 cm (framed)
Edition 3 of 28
L’infinito, 1968-69
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
37 x 25 cm (image)
57.5 x 62.5 (framed)
Edition 3 of 28
“When I photograph artists, I am not interested in doing the typical portrait, what interests me is to underline the connection of the artists with his own work. I try to find out which of those attitudes is crucial.”
_Ugo Mulas
PIERO MANZONI
“We absolutely cannot consider the picture as a space onto which to project our mental scenography. It is the area of freedom in which we search for the discovery of our first images.”
_Piero Manzoni
Piero Manzoni, Bar Jamaica, 1953-54
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper
37.5 x 37.5 cm (image)
57.5 x 62.5 (framed)
Edition 8 of 28
“Surroundings, man and friendship have affected my work often in a decisive way.”
_Ugo Mulas
JOAN MIRÓ
“When a painting doesn’t satisfy me, I feel physical distress, as if ill, as if my heart isn’t working properly, as if I can’t breathe and am suffocating.”
_Joan Miró
Joan Mirò, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milano, 1963
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
25 x 37 cm (image)
62.5 x 57.5 cm (framed)
Edition 3 of 28
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI
“The human face is as strange to me as a countenance, which, the more one looks at it, the more it closes itself off and escapes by the steps of unknown stairways.”
_Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti, XXXI Esposizione Internazionale Biennale d’Arte Venezia, 1962
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
25 x 37.5 cm (image)
62.5 x 57.5 (framed)
Edition 3 of 28
GIORGIO DE CHIRICO
“There is much more mystery in the shadow of a man walking on a sunny day, than in all religions of the world.”
_Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio De Chirico, Roma, 1968
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
37 x 25 cm (image)
57,5 x 62,5 cm (framed)
Edition 3 of 28
“Usually when you say that you want someone to be natural, the meaning of being natural is not that of being in that way towards yourself, but of being natural with the camera.”
_Ugo Mulas
Michelangelo Pistoletto
“I believe that our first real figurative experience is the recognition of our own image in the mirror: the fiction which comes closest to reality. “
_Michelangelo Pistoletto
Sala di Michelangelo Pistoletto, Vitalità del Negativo, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma, 1970
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
37 x 37 cm (image)
62.5 x 57.5 cm (framed)
Edition 12 of 28
GIORGIO MORANDI
“Nothing is more abstract than reality.”
_Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi, Bologna, 1962
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
37 x 25 cm (image)
57.5 x 62.5 cm (framed)
Edition 8 of 28
“I think the very portrait is the one in which the person stands there, in a pose, aware of the camera, doing nothing but pose.”
_Ugo Mulas
RICHARD HAMILTON
“It’s not so easy to create a memorable image. Art is made through the sensibilities of an artist, and the kind of ambitions and intelligence, curiosity and inner direction that role requires.”
_Richard Hamilton
Richard Hamilton, 1971
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
25 x 37 cm (image)
62.5 x 57.5 cm (framed)
Edition 3 of 28
MARC CHAGALL
“All our interior world is reality, and that, perhaps more so than our apparent world.”
_Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall, 1958
Gelatin silver print on baritated paper on board
37.5 x 25 cm (image)
57.5 x 62.5 cm (framed)
Edition 3 of 28
Photo Ugo Mulas © Ugo Mulas Heirs. All rights reserved