"BLACK SQUARE" MEMORIES

When “Black Square” Memories is viewed from afar, the pieces seem identical … true as it relates to “Black Square” … but upon closer inspection, the history about the square and its creator, Kazimir Malevich is revealed.

The text is reduced and subdued to indicate that this history is inconsequential to the constancy of “Black Square” … seen in repetitive fashion … since its inception in 1913 as part of costume and stage design for the opera, “Victory Over the Sun.”

Today, “Black Square” is as vibrant and vital as when it was first put on public display.

The history text courtesy of kazimirmalevich.org and wikipedia.org:

In sequence, 1-17:

BS1: In 1913, Kazimir Malevich’s costume sketches for the opera, “Victory Over the Sun” contain distinct black squares and rectangles. During the pivotal scene depicting the death of the Sun, black squares appear eight times: on a curtain and the backdrops, and on the coats and hats of the Sun's pall bearers.

BS2: The painting, “Black Square” is first shown in the “Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0,10” presented by the Dobychina Art Bureau at Marsovo Pole, Petrograd, from December 19, 1915 to January 17, 1916. Malevich describes the painting as the "zero form of painting.”

BS3: Malevich declares “Black Square” as a milestone in both his oeuvre and "in the history of art". He writes, “I was so excited at the breakthrough that I was unable to sleep, eat, or drink for an entire week after.”

BS4: Malevich paints three other versions of “Black Square” in 1923, 1929, and between the late 1920s and early 1930s. Each version differs slightly in size and texture.

BS5: Malevich describes “Black Square” as part of the Suprematism movement, which emphasizes color and shape. The title "Suprematism" is derived from the word supremus (Russian: Супремус), which translates as "superior" or "perfected.” He says, “It is intended to reflect my desire to "liberate" painting from mimesis (imitation) and representational art.”

BS6: The Suprematism movement gains many supporters among the Russian avant-garde, but is overshadowed by Constructivism, whose manifesto better reflects the ideology of the early Soviet government.

BS7: Avant-garde art falls from favor after Joseph Stalin takes absolute control of the USSR in the late 1920s. Stalin is suspicious of people who travel outside the Soviet Union, and Malevich comes to the attention of Stalin's secret police as a possible dissident in early 1927 when he travels to Berlin to attend the Grosse Kunstausstellung exhibition where around 70 of his paintings and drawings are scheduled for display.

BS8: Malevich is aware that progressive artists are likely to be suppressed in Russia, and makes attempts to relocate to Germany, where the Nazi party is already targeting so called "degenerate art" that does not conform to the idealized Aryan way of living.

BS9: Malevich writes that “Black Square” is from zero, in zero, that the true movement of being begins, and that he transforms himself in the zero of form and emerges from nothing to creation, that is, to Suprematism, to the new realism in painting – to non-objective creation. He says, “The work is intended to evoke non-objectivity in the white emptiness of a liberated nothing."

BS10: Malevich explains that he has transformed himself in the “zero of form” and “fished” himself out of the “slough of academic art.” He says, “I have destroyed the ring of the horizon and escaped the circle of objects.”

BS11: Malevich explains that “Black Square” introduces the world of feeling, and he compares it to primitive art, or “marks” from the Aboriginal man. Their symbols stand for not an ornament but a feeling of rhythm.

BS12: The public and critics are not used to these new depictions in art, and Malevich writes that they proclaim they lose everything they love and are in a desert when they see “Black Square.”

BS13: Malevich describes “Black Square” as no “empty square”, but instead, the “feeling of nonobjectivity”. He explains that this desert is full of the “spirit of non-objective sensation”.

BS14: Malevich says, “Black Square” is not a subconscious form. It is the creation of intuitive reason. The face of the new art. The square is a living, regal infant. The first step of pure creation in art.”

BS15: Malevich is arrested in 1930. His work is officially banned in the USSR shortly after his early death in 1935. “Black Square” disappears from public view. Stalin's favored social realism is designated the official art of the union.

BS16: Decades pass and “Black Square” remains hidden away, its power and significance almost forgotten until the 1980s when glasnost and perestroika begin to “thaw the icy grip” of state censorship. 

BS17: Today, “Black Square” is regarded as historically significant in Modern art and one of the most recognizable paintings.

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