Why is this black square famous? - Allison Leigh
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In 1915, an exhibition of radical artworks opened in Russia. Many pieces pushed the boundaries of form and style, but one was particularly controversial: Kazimir Malevich’s “Black Square.” Criticized as simple and uninspired, Malevich’s work is more complicated than it first appears— and may not be a painting of a black square at all. Allison Leigh digs into the art style known as Suprematism.
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Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square was first shown in an exhibition of radical new artworks called the Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0,10. This exhibition showed numerous examples of new forms of abstraction, from Malevich’s Suprematist paintings to Vladimir Tatlin’s sculptural counter reliefs.
Altogether, fourteen artists showed their work in the exhibition, including not only Malevich and Tatlin, but also Nathan Altman, Ksenia Boguslavskaya, Vasily Kamensky, Anna Kirillova, Ivan Kliun, Mikhail Menkov, Vera Pestel, Liubov Popova, Ivan Puni, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, and Maria Vasilieva. To learn more about these artists and to see more of the works they exhibited alongside the Black Square, see this book, which was published to accompany a show commemorating the original exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler in 2015. You can also watch this video that shows how the exhibition was structured and which artworks it contained.
One of the world’s leading experts on Malevich, Aleksandra Shatskikh, wrote an entire book devoted to just the Black Square in 2012. Watch this lecture by Shatskikh to hear more about the origins of Suprematism.
Watch this video to see what the Black Square looks like today and to hear from the curators who care for the work at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
Watch this video to learn more about the Russian avant-garde and to see some more Suprematist works by Malevich that are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Read an article about what American audiences first thought about Malevich’s paintings when they were exhibited in New York in the 1930s.
Listen to a podcast interview with Andrew Spira, who wrote a book on the precedents for the Black Square, which can be found in the works of numerous painters, writers, philosophers, scientists, and censors. Look here for more podcast episodes discussing art history books with their authors.
Altogether, fourteen artists showed their work in the exhibition, including not only Malevich and Tatlin, but also Nathan Altman, Ksenia Boguslavskaya, Vasily Kamensky, Anna Kirillova, Ivan Kliun, Mikhail Menkov, Vera Pestel, Liubov Popova, Ivan Puni, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, and Maria Vasilieva. To learn more about these artists and to see more of the works they exhibited alongside the Black Square, see this book, which was published to accompany a show commemorating the original exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler in 2015. You can also watch this video that shows how the exhibition was structured and which artworks it contained.
One of the world’s leading experts on Malevich, Aleksandra Shatskikh, wrote an entire book devoted to just the Black Square in 2012. Watch this lecture by Shatskikh to hear more about the origins of Suprematism.
Watch this video to see what the Black Square looks like today and to hear from the curators who care for the work at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
Watch this video to learn more about the Russian avant-garde and to see some more Suprematist works by Malevich that are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Read an article about what American audiences first thought about Malevich’s paintings when they were exhibited in New York in the 1930s.
Listen to a podcast interview with Andrew Spira, who wrote a book on the precedents for the Black Square, which can be found in the works of numerous painters, writers, philosophers, scientists, and censors. Look here for more podcast episodes discussing art history books with their authors.
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Meet The Creators
- Educator Allison Leigh
- Director Alexia Roider, Zedem Media
- Narrator Addison Anderson
- Storyboard Artist Jeanne Bornet
- Animator Maria Savva
- Art Director Jeanne Bornet
- Sound Designer Manolis Manoli
- Director of Production Gerta Xhelo
- Produced by Abdallah Ewis
- Editorial Director Alex Rosenthal
- Editorial Producer Dan Kwartler
- Script Editor Molly Bryson
- Fact-Checker Charles Wallace
