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In the
highly developed artistic climate of Moscow and St Petersburg before
the revolution Malevich joined up with the avantgarde and assimilated
the international influence of Expressionism and Cubism into his scenes
of peasant life. At the age of 29 he participated in an exhibition with Kandinsky. Five years later, in 1912, the Donkey’s Tail group
juxtaposed work by Malevich and Tatlin. In 1913 he rebelled, attacking
old friends in art; with the composer Matyushin he created theatrical
performances of literary works by Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov. He designed
costumes for the opera Victory over the Sun and in 1914 he
defended Marinetti in his visit to Moscow. But it is his creation of
Suprematism - the supremacy of an experience evoked by pure visual art
- which still resounds. At the end of 1915 he confronted the world with
a sensational visual fact divorced from all links with recognisable
manifestations - a black square on a white background.
An investigation into the field of
painterly culture is the modest title given to a set of 22 large
charts, which are the concise record of research into the content and
development of modern painting produced under the aegis of Malevich at
the State Institute of Artistic Culture in Leningrad, when he headed the
Formal Theoretical Department. According to the general guidelines of
the department, set up in 1923, its task was the formal analysis of
paintings in accordance with a perpetually changing Weltempfant
or reception of the world. Malevich regarded works which involved this
process as living organisms, in contrast to paintings in which narrative
or aesthetic grounds govern the artist. Tarkovsky, nearer to our own
time, has discussed a similar division between film directors who allow
the world to acquire form through the poet’s personal vision (Bergman,
Kurosawa and Tarkovsky himself) and those who make the literal
translation of a screenplay, for whom the narrative is dominant.
Remarkably,
the charts are annotated in German, a language that Malevich did not
speak. On nearly every one, in an inconspicuous position, is a small
handwritten Russian text, an approximate translation from the German.
When his reputation in Western Europe grew, Malevich accompanied a major
exhibition of his work to Warsaw and Berlin. The charts were essential
to the general purpose of the journey to inform the Western public about Suprematism. Today they pose several problems. The lecture they
illustrated, which evidently elicited an enthusiastic response, has
been lost. All that remains are the 22 numbered charts which even Malevich admitted were almost incomprehensible (with or without a
lecture). The concurrent Berlin exhibition in 1927 presented a survey
of Malevich’s development as a painter and designer, but isolated from
the theoretical context which he valued so highly. The charts are a
vital part of Malevich’s work for they convey an explicit idea of his
views on art.
It could
follow that every trend in contemporary art establishes its own prism
and that each prism, although positioned at a different viewpoint,
resembles the one next to it. This idea could be extended to mean
therefore that there are no real opposing judgments of contemporary art.
Malevich’s own judgments on his contemporaries remain misunderstood. He
was unsympathetic to the narrative art of his period if it also
suggested discovery, although he failed to recognise the focus of his
complaint. He regarded Futurism as an imitative art for example, but did
not mention the aesthetic or narrative considerations in Futurist
paintings for which he had clear disdain.
The second
group of charts analyses perception. From them Malevich’s classification
of painting becomes clear at a glance: art at the service of literature
and non-objective ‘art as such’. A reproduction of a painting by
Boccioni is ruthlessly termed classical and naturalistic art.
The third section of charts
illustrates a new teaching method. According to Malevich, a student was
not urged to work as a suprematist. Instead a variety of questions and
assignments would deduce his sensations and stage of development in a
chosen style. One student was ‘diagnosed’ a painterly realist, which
meant that he entertained realistic notions about painting itself. At
the time of the investigation the student was using both cubist and
suprematist stylistic features. His work was eclectic and called for
didactic intervention. As a result of conversations and tasks, the
student started working in an early cubist style until, according to a
graph in the chart, he came in perfect contact with his work and
consequently satisfied.
After
Berlin, Malevich entrusted many works from his exhibition to a German
friend who was unable to make them productive in an era of growing
Nazism. On his return to Russia, Malevich faced a new cultural policy
which was uninterested in his formalism. He looked back to his point of
departure before 1913 as the ‘New Russian Style’. The work that ensued
was remarkable for its figurative character but no less for the power
which it expressed. Was he trying to teach his compatriots what real
socialist, realistic art was or should be? Or, even better, what the art
is of a socialist society focused on the common person?
There is no
answer. A silence fell which, despite the unavailability of most of his
work after his death in 1935, fortunately did not condemn him to
oblivion. The paradox of denial is so eminently the theme of Russia, and
Russia’s denied idealistic socialism seems emblematic of the artistic
dilemma of our lives. The theme’s most poignant manifestation is in the
featureless peasant figures. They symbolise a general irony, for they
appear trusting in their candour. Feet are placed firmly on the ground;
the vibrant colours cherish optimism. Now that modern Russia has decided
to endorse the imagery created during the Revolutionary period, the
importance of Malevich’s work has been underlined.
A Review of the Malevich exhibition
at the Stedelich Museum, Amsterdam in 1989. First published in Art
Monthly UK and Art Monthly Australia in 1989
Timothy Foster |
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