In 1961 Saul Steinberg created an extraordinary graffito decoration of the atrium of the Palazzina Mayer in Milan, commissioned by Studio BBPR which was following the renovation. An important work, which followed other similar undertakings carried out by the great designer and illustrator in the United States during the previous decade. Once the work was completed, Steinberg asked a young Ugo Mulas to witness the work, in its entirety and in detail. To help the photographer in his work, the artist also writes a short text that explains the iconography and meaning of his work, a reflection on the labyrinth starting from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, the city where Steinberg had lived before the war . In 1997 the building will be renovated again, and the graffiti destroyed: today, only Ugo Mulas' photographs remain of that splendid intervention, capable of providing both the document of the work and its interpretation.

The exhibition Ugo Mulas / Saul Steinberg's graffiti in Milan, curated by Archivio Ugo Mulas and Walter Guadagnini, will be in the Project Room of CAMERA from 14 February to 14 April 2024 and tells that story, re-proposing the entire decoration in scale starting from Mulas' photographs. A selection of around thirty photographs - some vintage, others printed for this occasion - allow us to delve deeply into the work of these two great representatives of 20th century art, to appreciate Steinberg's iconographic imagination and the poetic clarity of Mulas' eye .

The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Ugo Mulas Archive of Milan and is accompanied by a volume published by Dario Cimorelli Editore, edited by Dario Borso, author of the critical text and research that allowed the reconstruction of this singular episode of Italian culture post-war period, containing Mulas' images and the typescript sent by Steinberg to the photographer.