CAMUC opens, new museum in downtown Ulassai dedicated to Maria Lai

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Binding to the Mountain, the Municipality of Ulassai and the Art Station Foundation will inaugurate the exhibition Maria Lai. Di Terra e di cielo, an exhibition event that will mark the opening of CAMUC Casa Museo Cannas, a new museum in the center of Ulassai.

“The building, which still preserves important traces of the past, was acquired by the municipality about 25 years ago to be transformed into a cultural space,” said Gian Luigi Serra, mayor of Ulassai. “Today, finally, after a careful work of architectural recovery and functional redevelopment, we can return to the community a significant place of our country capable of further increasing its cultural offerings and attracting new flows of visitors.”

The exhibition, curated by Davide Mariani, organized by the Municipality of Ulassai and the Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte, and with the set-up by Rome-based architecture firm laiBE, will bring together more than one hundred autograph works, photographs, videos, sketches and new acquisitions that come from recent donations by Maria Lai’s grandchildren to the Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte. The exhibition event will be developed in two paths, one inside CAMUC and the other through the streets of the historic center.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Tying Yourself to the Mountain, by far the most emblematic work of the relationship between the artist and her community, the historic center of Ulassai will host more than fifty photographs, including many previously unpublished ones, depicting the people of the village as they tie their homes to the mountain with 26 kilometers of celestial ribbon.

“When Maria Lai made Legarsi alla montagna (Tying oneself to the Mountain) in 1981, she did not, by her own admission, find the right term to define the operation,” explained Davide Mariani, director of the Stazione dell’Arte Foundation. “What leaves one apparently speechless is an important and revolutionary fact: in Ulassai the author of the intervention is the village, not a single artist. In fact, its elaboration of symbolic images, suggested by legends and stories, had been entrusted to those who, although strangers to the art world, wanted to contribute operationally with personal and collective participation in the creation of this extraordinary work.”

These photos, placed at various points in the village, constitute important testimonies of Binding to the Mountain. Thanks to study and research work conducted over the past two years, the images that Virgilio Lai took during the event have been rediscovered.

Inside CAMUC, visitors will instead be able to admire Maria Lai’s most significant works from the Art Station’s collection, along with unpublished or nearly unpublished archival materials.

CAMUC opens, new museum in downtown Ulassai dedicated to Maria Lai

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.