Remembering Josep Pujiula i Vila (1937-2016)

OBITUARY: JOSEP PUJIULA I VILA

Jo Farb Hernández

Internationally renowned art environment builder Josep Pujiula i Vila suddenly died of a heart attack the morning of June 2, 2016. He was 79 years old.

Photo: Jo Farb Hernández, 2000

Beginning in the 1970s, Pujiula built a series of monumental openwork structures out of willow branches and found objects in a wooded area just west of the village of Argelaguer in the Pyrenean foothills of Catalunya. But as he didn’t build on his own property, again and again he ran into challenges with authorities from the municipality, the electrical company, and the agencies in charge of water, electricity, and highways. Responding to their demands, he destroyed but then rebuilt four complete art environments in this area, each unique but each also utilizing what became his iconic material and motif: arched tunnels created from the flexible branches of the saplings found by the nearby Fluvià River. He lashed these slim limbs together to erect numerous towers reaching 40 meters (130+ feet) high and labyrinths that curved around the hillsides, snaking up and stretching over a kilometer in length. Shelters, passageways strung 20 meters (65 feet) in the air, stairways, and bridges added to the complexity of the maze.

Photo: Jo Farb Hernández, 2009

In the last fifteen years Pujiula also constructed a lyrical fountain area in concrete and iron, increasing the durability of his work and the immortality of his name. Hugging the hillside and ornamented with kinetic steel and stone sculptures, these cascading ponds finished in a natural pool below.

Photo: Jo Farb Hernández, 2009

Photo: Jo Farb Hernández, 2007

Most recently, he hacked out his own “Pharaonic Tomb” from the rocky hillside with simple hand tools, covering the exterior façade as well as the interior walls with hieroglyphics that represented images from his life.

Photo: Sam Hernández 2016

 Pujiula’s creation of one of the most spectacular and extensive art environments anywhere defied traditional community norms of aesthetics and function, yet enjoyment of his site by visitors ultimately became crucial to his continued efforts. Finally, after decades fighting the authorities, in October 2014 Pujiula’s site was officially recognized as a local heritage site, a worthy recipient of county funding and support. And in the summer of 2015 he was a finalist for the International Award for Public Art, representing all of Europe including the Russian Federation. He was flown down to New Zealand for the award ceremony, his first major trip beyond Catalunya.

In recent weeks Pujiula manifested a creative explosion that astonished his family. “He was thinking only about building,” his son-in-law wrote me three weeks ago, “as if it would be the last act and legacy of his life.”