Ugo Mulas, Vitalità del negativo, 2010

Vitality of the Negative in Italian Art 1960-70 was the first exhibition organized by Incontri Internazionali d’Arte (an association founded by Graziella Lonardi Buontempo in Rome) and launched an important activity to promote contemporary art, both Italian and foreign. The exhibition brought together 33 artists who are today the emblem of Italian art of the sixties and seventies: Vincenzo Agnetti, Carlo Alfano, Getulio Alviani, Franco Angeli, Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Agostino Bonalumi, Davide Boriani, Enrico Castellani, Gianni Colombo, Gabriele De Vecchi, Luciano Fabro, Tano Festa, Giosetta Fioroni, Jannis Kounellis, Francesco Lo Savio, Renato Mambor, Piero Manzoni, Gino Marotta, Manfredo Massironi, Fabio Mauri, Mario Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Vettor Pisani, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mimmo Rotella, Piero Sartogo, Paolo Scheggi, Mario Schifano, Cesare Tacchi, Giuseppe Uncini, Gilberto Zorio. The event was witnessed by Ugo Mulas, the most attentive photographer of the international art scene of the time, who carried out the reportage of the event with his unmistakable style. Forty years later, this book focuses on this reportage, which has remained largely unpublished due to the photographer’s early death: the approximately 130 images offer a journey among the artists, the installations and the visitors, and a very lucid photographic reading of a crucial exhibition for Italian contemporary art. The book is also a useful tool for the history of photography that delves into the photographer’s personal research and his dialogue with the artists: during the inauguration of “Vitalità del negativo” Ugo Mulas took one of the first images of the series Verifiche (Verifications) which, for its formal rigor and analysis of the medium, is considered one of the most important works of photography of the time.