{"id":35282,"date":"2023-06-22T13:41:18","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T13:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/?p=35282"},"modified":"2023-06-26T11:43:27","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T11:43:27","slug":"rrose-selavy-in-the-underwater-pyrenees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/rrose-selavy-in-the-underwater-pyrenees\/","title":{"rendered":"Rrose S\u00e9lavy in the Underwater Pyrenees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Joan Casellas<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Performance-confer\u00e8ncia: Rrose S\u00e9lavy al Pirineu submar\u00ed, de Joan Casellas\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2mKCBUc76rw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Rrose S\u00e9lavy in the Underwater Pyrenees<\/em> is a performance-talk that was presented \u201cstereoscopically\u201d at the MNAC and in issue number 500 of the magazine <em>L\u2019AVEN\u00c7<\/em> on 26 March 2023 with an almost magical synchrony. It is a hybrid work that brings together, in a single \u201ccommunicative bundle\u201d, photography, performance, installation and spoken and written historical research, with formal differences typical of each medium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>THE PHOTO<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The action photo <em>With Marcel Duchamp in the apse of El Burgal<\/em> serves as a promotional synopsis of the <em>Rrose S\u00e9lavy in the Underwater Pyrenees<\/em> project <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.museunacional.cat\/en\/activities\/performance-talk-rrose-selavy-underwater-pyrenees\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.museunacional.cat\/en\/activities\/performance-talk-rrose-selavy-underwater-pyrenees\" target=\"_blank\">on the MNAC\u2019s website<\/a>. The starting point of this action photo is an unpublished photographic document in the MNAC\u2019s collection: a photograph taken by Maspons + Ubi\u00f1a in the late 1950s that presents <a href=\"https:\/\/www.museunacional.cat\/en\/colleccio\/marcel-duchamp-museu-dart-de-catalunya-barcelona\/oriol-maspons\/220103-000\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.museunacional.cat\/en\/colleccio\/marcel-duchamp-museu-dart-de-catalunya-barcelona\/oriol-maspons\/220103-000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Marcel Duchamp posing in the Romanesque apse of El Burgal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/220103-000_073330-708x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-35181\" width=\"354\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/220103-000_073330-708x1024.jpg 708w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/220103-000_073330-207x300.jpg 207w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/220103-000_073330-768x1111.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/220103-000_073330-1061x1536.jpg 1061w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/220103-000_073330-1415x2048.jpg 1415w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/220103-000_073330-scaled.jpg 1769w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 354px) 100vw, 354px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:10px\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.museunacional.cat\/ca\/colleccio\/marcel-duchamp-al-museu-dart-de-catalunya-barcelona\/oriol-maspons\/220103-000\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Marcel Duchamp al Museu d&#8217;Art de Catalunya (Barcelona)<\/em><\/a>. Oriol Maspons, Julio Ubi\u00f1a, around 1960. \u00a9 Oriol Maspons, Vegap, Barcelona, 2023. \u00a9Succession Marcel Duchamp\/Vegap et ADAGP, Paris, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The idea of this action photo is to create a paradoxical situation: visiting the same place in the photograph by Maspons + Ubi\u00f1a (the apse of El Burgal) equipped with a placard that sustains the 1:1 scale enlargement of Duchamp\u2019s face in the photo by Maspons + Ubi\u00f1a and a fragment of the Romanesque painting, which acts as a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, which when fitted in the real space connects two moments more than 63 years apart \u2013 a sort of transtemporal proto-selfie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/casellas-625x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-35192\" width=\"313\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/casellas-625x1024.png 625w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/casellas-183x300.png 183w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/casellas-768x1258.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/casellas.png 841w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 313px) 100vw, 313px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:10px\"><em>With Marcel Duchamp at the MNAC<\/em>. Photo: Casellas + Alabern Arxiu Aire, 2023. Based on a portrait of Marcel Duchamp in the apse of El Burgal taken by Maspons+Ubi\u00f1a. \u00a9 Oriol Maspons, Vegap, Barcelona, 2023. \u00a9Succession Marcel Duchamp\/Vegap et ADAGP, Paris, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This image fits perfectly with my research, based on studying Duchamp\u2019s personal and artistic relationship with Catalonia from a series of historic photos that Duchamp causes to be taken, commissions, or takes personally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>THE PERFORMANCE\u2013THE INSTALLATION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/FsJJo-lXoAA-Wrs-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-35203\" width=\"384\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/FsJJo-lXoAA-Wrs-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/FsJJo-lXoAA-Wrs-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/FsJJo-lXoAA-Wrs-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/FsJJo-lXoAA-Wrs.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I endeavour to move <em>at the limit of fragility<\/em>, the monumental nature of the space in the Oval Hall. With the geometry of the scales of the atrium and the line of string, <em>from one corner to the other of the Oval Hall,<\/em> where the portrait-placard of Duchamp juggles and at the same time acts as a mainstay, at the point where the lines of string cross the long diameter of the hall. On this \u201cwashing line\u201d I hang various documents: <em>The Man Ray Enigma<\/em>, <em>What is Duchamp observing at La Caula?<\/em>,<strong>(1)<\/strong> the complete photo of Duchamp in the apse of El Burgal by Maspons + Ubi\u00f1a, a drawing of the fisherman\u2019s knot <em>gassa de m\u00e0<\/em> (with which I have tied the string to the sides of the hall) &nbsp;and objects that refer to the research, as a curved line, made with an aluminium bar, that projects in 3D the pneumatic cable shutter release that Duchamp used to take the photograph of the Cap de Creus in 1933, the gridded fabric of the bundle that I use to transport all the ruses of the action \u2013 a reference to the game of chess \u2013 omnipresent in Duchamp\u2019s life, the medieval ornamentation and in the cabalistic and alchemical speculations that Duchamp practised intuitively<strong>(2)<\/strong> and a continuous reference to Remedios Varo.<strong>(3)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The video records all the details. Something less \u201cvisible\u201d is the soundtrack: the whistles, the vibration of the string, the sounds of the scattered assembled ruses, precise sentences: <em>Cal mirar per\u00f2 no a simple vista<\/em> (One has to look but not at first sight) (in relation to the readymade<em> With Hidden Noise <\/em>(1921), indicated by the ball of string, and<em> hole of precision<\/em>, in reference to the point where the wheel is joined to the kitchen stool in the first readymade (1913), present here with a <em>mutant replica<\/em>(4) with the snow shovel and the bricks of <em>\u00c9tant donn\u00e9s<\/em>, spontaneous laughter and the sounds of the wheel\/harp with the king of <em>bastos<\/em> playing card and the fingernails of my hand. On the floor a mess of bits of the Catalan flag, the green plastic bag, various pieces of iron, clothes pegs and the big head of Marcel Duchamp made by Ventura &amp; Hosta for the last Muga Caula in 2019 www.lamugacaula.cat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>THE RESEARCH<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I present various novelties arranged in seven true stories: <em>The game of the cable and the table: Mary, Man and Rrose,<\/em> about a photographic game of chance with unpublished photos of Man Ray and Duchamp; <em>A Romanesque bell tower lost on the railway line,<\/em> in which I correctly locate a photograph of Man Ray and his journey to Cadaqu\u00e9s in 1933;<em> The black moon of La Caula,<\/em> in which I analyse a photograph by Man Ray at La Caula waterfall, Duchamp\u2019s favourite place in L\u2019Empord\u00e0;<em> The Man Ray<\/em> <em>Enigma<\/em> in which I present an unpublished photo by Man Ray that details, in 1952, Duchamp\u2019s secret work <em>\u00c9tant<\/em> <em>donn\u00e9s<\/em> (1946-1966<em>)<\/em>; <em>Things are what they seem depending on what you know about them,<\/em> in which I analyse Duchamp\u2019s way of working like an illusionist magician, with the 1956 cover <em>Le surr\u00e9alisme m\u00eame,<\/em> as an example; <em>The moustachioed Mona Lisa of Cadaqu\u00e9s,<\/em> in which I analyse this almost unknown replica,(5) made in Cadaqu\u00e9s in 1958 and I list for the first time the 18 versions Duchamp made from 1919 to 1967, and <em>Romanesque<\/em> <em>Duchamp, <\/em>in which I present and analyse, somewhat poetically, the unpublished photo by Maspons + Ubi\u00f1a of Duchamp in the apse of El Burgal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/FsJJpKVWAAEwUK-.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-35200\" width=\"512\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/FsJJpKVWAAEwUK-.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/FsJJpKVWAAEwUK--300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/FsJJpKVWAAEwUK--768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The talk is spoken, written and recorded in two videos, one that can be accessed via a QR code in the pages of <em>L\u2019AVEN\u00c7<\/em> and the other that documents the performance-talk on the MNAC\u2019s website. An iconic image: steam coming from La Caula waterfall. A statement: <em>Marcel Duchamp\u2019s work is under the sign of Rococo<\/em> <em>Art,<\/em> and a poetic sentence: <em>olive tree twigs on the bed of the river Muga at the confluence with the La Caula<\/em> <em>torrent<\/em> as a purifying and conductive element. As a photographic introduction the action photo <em>With Marcel Duchamp in the apse of El Burgal<\/em> and an extremely quick showing of the portrait monographic <em>Catalonia Welcomes Duchamp<\/em> published in issue number 196 of the magazine <em>Bonart<\/em>, for this is the key: Catalonia-Duchamp!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/gview?url=www.museunacional.cat\/pdf\/Revista500Aven\u00e7JoanCasellas.pdf&#038;embedded=true\" style=\"width:100%; height:700px;\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/gview?url=www.museunacional.cat\/pdf\/Revista196bonartJoanCasellas.pdf&#038;embedded=true\" style=\"width:100%; height:700px;\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:10px\"><strong>1<\/strong> This text is not part of the talk. I presented it orally at a conference at the University of Girona on 13 May 2019 and I published a plaquette from it, in the last edition of Muga Caula, in September 2019. Since then I have withdrawn the edition to I order to make a few changes in the text. What I posted here was the visual part that explains everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:10px\"><strong>2<\/strong> As explained by Arturo Schwarz in the complete works and Duchamp explains it to Pierre Cabanne. I simply make a visual note of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:10px\"><strong>3<\/strong> With this cloth I have performed several actions related to both Duchamp and Remedios Varo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:10px\"><strong>4<\/strong> This sculpture-conference; <em>VSMDPF<\/em> created in 2015, brings together two readymades by Duchamp; the wheel (1913) and the Snow Shovel (1915) with the two kinds of bricks Duchamp used for <em>\u00c9tant donn\u00e9s<\/em> (1946-1966) the Catalan and the English brick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:10px\"><strong>5 <\/strong>In 1984 it was exhibited at the Mir\u00f3 Foundation in Barcelona in the exhibition <em>Duchamp<\/em>, but it was not published until 2017 in the exhibition catalogue <em>Dal\u00ed &amp; Duchamp<\/em> at the Royal Academy in London, with an 11&#215;7 cm reproduction. I now present it in context to the other versions, published full page in <em>L\u2019Aven\u00e7<\/em> (24 x 15 cm).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joan Casellas Rrose S\u00e9lavy in the Underwater Pyrenees is a performance-talk that was presented \u201cstereoscopically\u201d at the MNAC and in issue number 500 of the magazine L\u2019AVEN\u00c7 on 26 March 2023 with an almost magical synchrony. It is a hybrid work that brings together, in a single \u201ccommunicative bundle\u201d, photography, performance, installation and spoken and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":567,"featured_media":35280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1884],"class_list":["post-35282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-en","tag-performance","author-joan-casellas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/wp-content\/uploads\/detall.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4tWCI-9b4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/567"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35282"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35296,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35282\/revisions\/35296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}