A Constant Euphoria: The Artist-Run Spaces by Ugo Carrega through Archival Sources

Abstract

In the limited overview of the Italian artist-run spaces in the 1970s, those promoted between 1969 and 1996 in Milan by Ugo Carrega (1935-2014) are of particular importance in the context of the verbo-visual arts: the Centro Suolo (1969-1970), the Centro Tool (1971-1973), the Mercato del Sale (1974-1991) and the Euforia costante (1993-1996). These galleries also worked as gathering places for culture, alternative networks, experimentation and publishing laboratories. Their artistic vivacity counterbalanced the limits imposed by almost nonexistent budget. By analysing several partitions from the Ugo Carrega archive, now mostly gathered at the Mart in Rovereto, this essay traces the events of those spaces. The archives is divided into four distinct groups: the Fraccaro-Carrega archive, the Archivio di Nuova Scrittura archive, the Ugo Carrega papers and the Dario Viva papers. Despite this partition and the peculiar fragmentation of the personal archives, the preserved documentation is particularly effective in narrating the creativity of the galleries linked to verbo-visual arts, through a plurality of documentary sources, such as photographs, correspondence, writings, printed material and administrative documents, but also artworks. Sometimes even whole ̶ but ephemeral ̶ exhibitions, these also preserved among the artist's papers.