Speaking as a hopelessly clumsy fellow, that’s a nice catch.
Stanislaw Szukalski, the insane Polish artist, has been a long standing interest of mine since I first read about him and saw his work in Robert Crumb’s Weirdo Magazine back in the mid-80’s. His racial theories of history and human development were, of course, complete lunatic nonsense, but that doesn’t detract from his amazing skills as a draftsman, painter, and sculptor. Before WWII, he was considered one of Poland’s greatest artists. A great deal of his work was destroyed in Poland during the war. I had the good fortune to recently acquire a poster of one of the Maestro‘s later works, a tribute to his fellow Pole, Copernicus or Kopernik in his native tongue, theorist of the heliocentric system, a massive advance in cosmology and human understanding.
I can’t help but admire the thrusting dynamism of the work. It reminds me of Futurist works to some extent, Boccioni’s Striding Man particularly. Szukalski was fascinated with architecture and the human form and those interests are evident here. I seriously think that this structure would be feasible to construct from an engineering and architectural standpoint, but it would probably go down in history as the scariest monument ever made. The picture above isn’t a true rendition of the poster (some nitwit added some stars at the top), but it gives you a good idea what it’s like. To learn more, please click the link below for the official Szukalski website: