Week 4 – Reportage

 

The doors to the art museum open at three thirty on the Piazzo del Colicola.  I enter the cool shade of the portico and see a fiberglass gorilla staring at me.  As I circle around it, I notice wooden two by fours held down with stones exposed on the far side of the dark body.  I wonder if this is modern art at its finest.  Beyond the broken statue is an installation of two concrete circles arranged on gravel.  I step around the loose bits of gravel that have been knocked out of place.  I am unsure whether the artist meant for it to be walked on or not, so I take the safe route around the edges.  As I enter the ticket office I hear a male voice rising and falling in the adjacent room.  With ticket in hand, I enter the room filled with sculptures and glass cases.  Ugo Mulas is arranging his display of the plans and correspondence that led to his creation of the sculpture that adorns the parking lot of the train/bus station.  He evidently has some definite ideas about how he wants the display to look.  A museum employee handles him with an affirmative nod and follows him out the door to the parking lot.  They return deep in conversation and don’t see me at all.  I wander around the room reading artist name plates and make my way over to the glass box that has been updated and view the drawings of the plans for the sculpture I have seen at the station.  As I am reading, Ugo Mulas returns, sees me and nods a smile my way, then disappears out the exit.