Hommage to Albert Szukalski

Charles Albert Szukalski was born on April 4th 1945 in Furth im Wald (D). As a young man he moved to Antwerp (B) where he studied at the Art Academy.

[Middelheim Parc-Wilrijk-Belgium]

In 1971 his “nose project” did attract attention and he was invited to exhibit in Paris. Szukalski took plaster imprints of noses of famous artists and exposed them. Salvador Dali was afraid that taking an imprint of his nose would damage his moustache, Szukalski took an imprint of Dali’s finger instead.

After the “nose project” Szukalski started his “Ghosts’ project”. To create them, Szukalski coated real models in wet plaster and posed them in different positions. When the plaster set, the models slipped out. The sculptures were then coated in fiberglass to make them weatherproof.

[Komedieplaats-Antwerp-Belgium]

Known in Europe as the sculptor of “ghosts” and a “situation maker”, he visited Death Valley while in the United States to see his mother, who lived in Northern California. He fell in love with the Death Valley area and the symbolic West.

In Nevada during 1984 he did create what is perhaps the most unique piece of his career. Originally designed to endure a mere two years, “The Last Supper”, sculpture has not only stood the test of time, but has lived on to become the “genesis” piece of the Goldwell Open Air Museum which you can find in the Death Valley, close to the ghost town of Rhyolite.

[Death Valley-Nevada-USA]

Albert Szukalski followed up “The Last Supper” with two other pieces at the site, “Ghost Rider” in 1984 and “Dessert Flower” in 1989. The videotapes that recorded Szukalski and the locals creating “The Last Supper” was made using six hours of video taken during the making of “The Last Supper”, in which residents posed in hundreds of pounds of plaster.

[Elzenveld-Antwerp-Belgium]

Szukalski,who died in 2000, loved the freedom of creating art in the American West. In his hometown Antwerp one can find a number of ghosts’ sculptures, some of which are on this post. To obtain more information on the Ghosts’ project in the Death Valley you can follow this link: Suzalski and Goldwel Open Air Museum.