Continuously surrounded by images, photos, tiktoks, reels and an overwhelming flow of media content, we sometimes need to stop scrolling and try to ask ourselves: what is the role of the image today? Who is the photographer? Is he simply a witness of his time, capturing reality as it is, or is he more of an artist, shaping his own vision of the world?
Well, even if these questions are more complex than they seem, we will try to provide some answers by considering one of the most influential Italian photographers: Ugo Mulas (1928 – 1973).
At the beginning of February, the retrospective “Ugo Mulas. The Photographic Operation” housed in Palazzo Reale in Milan, closed its doors, and now it is time to reflect on this exhibition by bringing attention to an artistic figure from whom we have much to learn.
Born in 1928 in Pozzolengo (Brescia), Ugo Mulas initially studied law. However, this academic path did not fascinate him and in 1951 he enrolled in an evening course at the Brera Academy. This decision led Mulas to quickly become part of Milan’s intellectual circles thanks to Bar Jamaica, a post-war hub where artists, writers and public figures convened to exchange ideas and cultivate cultural dialogue. It was during this period that Mulas, pursuing photography with a self-taught approach, began taking photographs at Bar Jamaica, marking the beginning of his artistic exploration.
Mulas often places Milan at the center of his works, capturing its economic and social dynamism during the second half of the 20th century. Through his lens, Milan emerges as a city undergoing rapid transformation: the rise of skyscrapers, the birth of new working-class neighborhoods, the construction sites of the first metro line, the establishment of universities and the flourishing of galleries, cafés, restaurants and boutiques. His photographs also document crucial events for Italian political and social history, including the funerals of the victims of Piazza Fontana and the 1968 Triennale protests.
A turning point of his career was the opportunity to photograph the Venice Biennale editions from 1954 to 1972, during which he developed a close collaboration with artists. Additionally, his photographic style was strongly influenced by Arte Informale, an artistic movement that abandoned traditional forms in favor of emphasizing the creative gesture. By embracing this new artistic perspective, Mulas adopted a minimalist approach favoring black-and-white compositions to highlight meaning over decoration.
The exhibition “Ugo Mulas. The Photographic Operation” showcased some of the most significant photographs, offering a deep insight into his work, friendships and collaborations. A key aspect of the retrospective was its focus on Mulas’s innovative approach to art documenting. Rather than simply photographing artworks displayed in galleries, Mulas recognized that the role of the photographer extended far beyond this. He immersed himself in the very environments where these creations came to life, revealing the creative processes and contexts that drove them.
Particularly relevant in his life-long work were the photographs of his friend Lucio Fontana (1899–1968). Globally renowned for being the father of Spatialism, Fontana revolutionized the concept of physical space in art by breaking the flat surface of the canvas. Mulas explored the artist’s gesture, capturing the moment of the cut and the time embedded in the action, restoring its complexity.
Equally fascinating were the photographs of Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) and Alexander Calder (1898–1976). Best known for his readymades —ordinary objects elevated to art, such as the signed urinal Fountain (1917)—Duchamp is captured by Mulas in his most essential state. The artist was portrayed at the first level of existence: walking, observing a chessboard in Washington Square and performing seemingly mundane tasks. Through this series, Mulas created a kind of counterimage of the artist, as seen in a shot of Duchamp contemplating one of his works. In contrast, Mulas’s photographs of Calder— renowned for his playful works that introduced movement and interaction into modern sculpture—reflect Mulas’s deep admiration. His images celebrate Calder’s dynamic personality, capturing the artist’s playful yet patriarchal presence with a sense of warmth and humor that reflects their close friendship.
These portraits illustrated Mulas’s ability to reveal the essence of the artists while honoring their individuality.
Mulas visited the US after the Venice Biennale in 1964, which popularized Pop Art in Europe by establishing New York as the epicenter of the art world. His time in New York exposed him to the conceptual art movement, which freed artists from the constraints of faithfully representing reality and fueled the rise of Pop Art, a mid-20th-century movement focused on consumer culture, mass media and everyday objects.
Notably, Mulas photographed Andy Warhol with the same minimalist philosophy he applied in Italy. Instead of capturing Warhol surrounded by his colorful works, Mulas framed him in stark black and white. These portraits provided a critical and contemplative perspective on Warhol’s artistic practice.
Back in Italy, Mulas explored new intersections between art and fashion. For Vogue Uomo, he photographed artists such as Alighiero Boetti, Valerio Adami, Lucio Fontana, Agostino Bonalumi and Ettore Sottsass in his studio.
The influence of his journey to the United States remained profound. Encounters with artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, along with the discovery of the photography of Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander, inspired Mulas’s late-1960s explorations and marked his departure from traditional reportage towards more experimental approaches.
Additionally, the decline of reportage, now overshadowed by television, prompted Mulas to embark on a re-evaluation of photography’s historical role. This crisis encouraged a profound transformation in his artistic production, leading to Verifiche, a series of fourteen images born from the author’s rigorous conceptual reflection on photography. By abandoning the documentation of artistic creations, Mulas started to focus on producing images where the object came into direct contact with the negative and the development process was stripped down to its essentials. This urgency stemmed from his quest to uncover the truth of a photographic image.
It is particularly in the final phase of his career that Mulas achieved a sense of clarity. The torment that had driven his artistic journey began to dissipate, and the film itself became the subject of his work, embodying the essence of his lifelong artistic quest.
These images, displayed in the exhibition, represent the crucial transition from photography tied to the gesture, the shot and the urbanist development, to a fully conceptual photography, where the idea prevails over everything. Verifiche challenges the notion that photography is merely the automatic recording of facts, but it is an act that demands responsibility and conscious decision-making by the photographer.
The figure of Mulas, well captered by the exhibition hosted in Palazzo Reale, offers us an opportunity to reflect on how photography could be seen as both a testimony and a critical interpretation of reality. Moreover, a key takeaway in the artistic path of this total photographer is to figure out how important are versatility and curiosity to delve into a range of topics by embracing change within one’s professional role.
