La Muga Caula

The action of the Caula fountain

Poster: “CONFINS ARDENTS” Concept and action: Marina Barsy Janer x Isil Sol Vil. Photo: Joan Casellas-Arxiu Aire.

A waterfall works symbolically the two masterpieces of Marcel Duchamp – the Large Glass 1912-1936, and Étant donnés 1946-1966 – and for this reason we are fascinated by the unique¹ known photo of the master Dada next to a waterfall: the Caula; its warm waters are twinned with Duchamp’s most famous ready-made: the Urinal-Fountain from 1917.

The Fountain opens the door to the symbolic gesture and prefigures the performances that Duchamp shortly afterwards made explicit with his transforming photo-performances as Rrose Selavy. Also Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, inspirer of Rrose Selavy and first model of Étant donnés, becomes proto performer and invents with Duchamp the ready-made, and could even be the mysterious friend who sent the Urinal to the First Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists of New York… Thus the Fountain of Marcel and Elsa, beyond the thermal bonding, becomes a reference of performance art that promotes La Muga Caula.

By metaphysical confluence, this year 2017, Arxiu Aire (Archive Aire), promoter of La Muga Caula and producer of its posters, turns 25, an event that intersects with the photos of Duchamp in the Caula and the elongated shadow of the Fountain. We celebrate Dada again, the Caula and all the photo-performances that cross it quickly. Now, like a hundred years ago, the world is drowning among wars (military, ecological and commercial). Artists replicate with the action of art: rethinking “reality” and seeking life in all aspects…

¹ Today, as result of our research, six more are known, all in the Caula.