Duchamp in 1912, Balla in 1912, Behan in 2026: three artists, more than a century apart, working on the same question: how to show the figure in motion on a two-dimensional surface.
Behan, Leg Day (2026). The repeated legs fan out in arcs that echo the dog's feet in the Balla. Duchamp and Balla painted their motion studies in muted tones from an observed or imagined model. Leg Day builds its motion from a photograph in the feed, in full color, with the figure a man at the gym.
Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912). A single figure broken into overlapping planes as it moves down the stairs. The painting caused a scandal at the 1913 Armory Show in New York, where one critic mocked it as an explosion in a shingle factory.
Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912). Painted the same year, it shows motion as repetition: the dog's feet, the tail, the leash, and the walker's skirt all multiply into blurred arcs. Both painters drew on the chronophotography of Muybridge and Marey.