A cubist giant in royal blue, orange and cream strides through the right half of the image. A spiral turns inside his chest, and at the lower left a burst of rays breaks open above two buildings.
Product description
The Cubist Golem T-shirt shows a giant built entirely out of flat shapes: angles, wedges and arcs in royal blue, orange and cream. He does not stand in the middle but in the right half of the front, and he does not stand still either. The upper body tips forward, the head is turned to the right, one leg is beginning a step. You are looking at someone who is just setting off.
The head is split in two, and the direction is worth a second look. On the right sits a clearly cut face in orange: a large eye with a blue iris, a sharply drawn nose in profile, and beneath it a broad grin with a visible row of teeth. On the left, curved bands in blue and cream lie on top of one another like a helmet closing off the other half. Half open, half covered.
In the chest sits a tilted square, and inside it a spiral of ever smaller squares turns inward. That is the point where your eye catches. Blue, orange and cream take turns ring by ring until nothing is left in the center but a tiny vortex.
The giant has more than one face. On the left shoulder rests a second profile that looks down to the left: open eye, straight nose, closed lips, entirely calm next to the grin above it. A little higher up a small eye blinks out of a flat shape. And on the right thigh a third one opens, almond-shaped, with a blue pupil. Four gazes, one body, and no two of them go in the same direction.
The right arm hangs down heavily. It consists of stepped plates lying over one another like a staircase and ends in an angular hand with spread fingers. Nothing about it is conceived as round. That is exactly what gives the figure its weight, even though it is made of nothing but color.
Behind him a burst of rays breaks open. Its center lies low on the left, about a quarter of the way in from the left edge and just above the hem. From there wedges run in every direction: over the shoulders, straight across the chest, down to the hem. Blue, cream and orange alternate, so the surface never comes to rest.
Right at this center stand houses. A bright facade with a row of small windows and a round pane at its foot, and next to it a roof as a large blue triangle. They reach the giant's knee. Only that gives him his scale: not a man in front of a sun, but a colossus above a settlement.
The surface is grainy like a hand pull from a cut block. Edges fray slightly, areas show their grain, and in some places two colors lie over each other with a slight offset. Nothing looks smoothed out. This roughness gives the picture its tone between workshop and billboard.
Three tones, no more. Royal blue carries the surface and holds everything together, orange brings in warmth and movement, cream lets air between the shapes. Because no fourth color interferes, the eye sorts out the many edges effortlessly, and a dense picture stays legible all the same.
The back goes the other way. On empty blue, high between the shoulder blades and slightly left of center, sits a single sign: an eye made of shards in orange, cream and blue, the iris a polygon with an orange crescent wrapped around it. From the lower left a narrow ladder with six rungs leans into the lower lid. Feel free to read that as an invitation.
The sleeves stay quiet. Royal blue, with only faintly suggested edges in a rust tone that you find only up close. That way the front gets its entrance without anything on the left and right competing with it.
A picture like this is worn by people who look twice before they decide they like something. If you are into cubism, if you are into constructivism, if you collect old posters, you will have something to discover here for a long time. And if none of that interests you, you still see a grinning giant with a spiral in his belly.
On the body the image shifts with every step. The wedges tilt slightly against one another, the burst of rays swings along, and the giant looks as if he really were taking his next step. On a wall he could not do that.
