Exhibition KMBS 2.0

Artist: Malevich, Kasimir
Title of Work: Black Square
Date of Work: 1913
Nationality: Russian
Context: Hard-Edge Geometric Abstraction; pre-revolutionary Russia Movement: Russian Suprematism Medium: oil

Subject: black square on white field, carrying abstraction to its ultimate geometric simplification. Called a "dead square" and a "void" by the critics, as well as "the greatest by far among the fairground tricks of instant culture." To Malevich, however, this square symbolized a "full void," in that it showed how painting could fulfill itself unaided by any reference to a specific external reality. For him the square represented only Suprematism: "the supremacy of pure feeling" in and of itself. Malevich removes specific subject matter by shifting away from representation and mimesis and towards the purity of mathematical geometry. "The square = feeling, the white field = the void beyond this feeling." Style: not gestural, not representational, no sign of personal touch; it is not about individual expression. The black square is not quite as simple as it looks: even by taking art to degree zero as Malevich does here, he creates a stressed reading of figure/ground that reads two ways, either a black square on top of a white ground or a black hole surrounded by a white border. Every object has a static facade and an inner dynamic, he believed. Still, quite minimal in effect; in fact, this hard-edge geometric abstraction is the forerunner of the later 1960s movement, Minimalism. Context: pre-revolutionary Russia; the Communist Revolution will happen in October 1917. The way in which Malevich does away with any representation of the material, physical world in this visionary, non-objective art parallels the way the revolution will do away with the hated old order. Envisioning a new reality on a higher plane; Malevich was a devout Christian mystic. For him, like Kandinsky, spirit and feeling rule over matter. Suprematism is his movement: "To the Suprematist, the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth." Not a black hole so much as a new threshold for painting. Quite a bold leap into complete abstraction since Russian art was still stuck in naturalism and epic narrative painting (akin to a long Russian novel). Malevich knew about the European avant-garde through two sources: Shchukin's collection of Matisse and Picasso, and through Marinetti, the author of the Italian Futurist manifesto, who made two trips to Russia, in 1909-10 and 1914. Still, it must have taken great courage for Malevich to exhibit 35 hard-edge geometric abstractions, including this one, in 1915 under the title, "Suprematism." From that point on, until Stalin established an official style of Soviet Realism in 1932, Russia was the most progressive country in the world in terms of modern abstract art.