On 3 November 2008 a work by Russian artist Kasimir Malevich entitled Suprematist Composition from 1916 set the world record for any Russian work of art and any work sold at auction for that year, selling at Sotheby’s in New York City for just over US$60 million (surpassing his previous record of US$17 million set in 2000).
Malevich created the most abstract geometric paintings of the early twentieth century. Rectangles, lozenges, triangles, squares; reducing form to solid shapes and colour to solid blocks. But his Black Square is the most iconic and changed the course of art. How can such a simple painting of a black square within a white frame have changed the course of art and influenced so many?
In 1915 in St Petersburg, Malevich – one of a group of early twentieth century artists who were seeking to push the boundaries of art, to go beyond Cubism and explore colour, form and representation – exhibited a small canvas, entitled Black Square. The painting was part of an installation of what he termed “suprematist” painting and the exhibition titled “0,10. The Last Futurist Exhibition”. Key to the exhibition is the title “last futurist exhibition”. Malevich had been part of a group of artists who called themselves Futurists – artists in Italy and elsewhere were similarly exploring these same boundaries and attempting to push art beyond the confines of realism – but Malevich went further. Futurism was over. The future was now Suprematism. Never seen before but sure to take the world by storm and influence artists for decades to come. And so it did.
The Black Square was radical in its conception and in its execution. It comprised of a variety of black gestural brushstrokes on a white background. Malevich referred to it as “zero of form”. But what made it unique was its daring presentation. The exhibition consisted of a number of other purely abstract geometric mages such as circles, crosses and compositions in solid colours. Malevich’s radical departure from realism into geometric abstraction had culminated with his Black Square, which, in order to further confirm its supremacy, he hung in the upper corner of the room.
To non Russian Orthodox people this would probably not have any meaning, but in the Russian Orthodox tradition, this is where an icon was hung. Malevich hung his Black Square at the heart of the religious sphere. Here in the place of an icon, is the utmost source of our belief. A statement of spiritual significance. So the Black Square is imbued with artistic and spiritual significance. No small ask.
According to Malevich, the perception of these pure abstract forms are free of logic and reason; where the absolute truth is realised through pure feeling. For Malevich, the square represented feelings, and the white, nothingness. This is not merely formalism, it’s zero of form. Its form and meaning was potent. “By Suprematism I mean the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art. To the Suprematist the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling.”*
And now? We still wonder at the audacity of the Black Square. In the twentieth century is was adopted as perhaps the most iconic abstract work and has yielded many followers and imitators. Ad Reinhardt, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko have all created works of art that reference Malevich. Abstraction has delved into exploring the spiritual, through design, and colour (Helen Frankenthaler remains one of my favourite abstract expressionists for her use of free flowing colour). Formalism eschewed any spiritual content and instead focused on the form – pure abstraction. John Nixon has unapologetically appropriated Malevich’s visual nomenclature to play with the iconography and render the signs and symbols – the circle, square and cross – meaningless of any spiritual power. And then there are others who have embraced black as a colour: Pierre Soulages creates some of the most mesmerising black visceral paintings I have ever seen while Alan Mitelman has created a suite of etchings that are abstract rectangles of inscrutable and exquisite markings that convey a sense of layers of invisible worlds.
And I too have appropriated Malevich’s iconography to create my own. For me, it’s not the square but the cross that has become such a potent artistic device – a means of dissecting a canvas and creating, through form, shape and colour: space. It is such a simple but powerful compositional device.
*In ‘The Non-Objective World: The Manifesto of Suprematism’, 1926; trans. Howard Dearstyne [Dover, 2003, ISBN 0-486-42974-1], ‘part II: Suprematism’, p. 67
tania j layden 