3x3 variations on
the black square from Kazimir Malevich
by Robert E. Houkes
DogPrintBooks 2021
This is the very first version of The Black Square, painted in 1915, oil on linen, 79.5 x 79.5 cm, and now in the Tretyakov Gallery, in Moscow. The painting looks terrible: crackled, scuffed, and discolored, as if it had spent the past eighty-eight years patching a broken window. In fact it’s due to negligence and contempt on the part of the Soviet government in whose keeping the original Black Square remained for decades has resulted in the painting degrading considerably.
3x3 variations on
the black square from Kazimir Malevich
by Robert E. Houkes
DogPrintBooks 2021
variation on the black square: two pieces
variation on the black square: four pieces
variation on the black square: eight pieces
variation on the black square: sixteen pieces
variation on the black square: disintegrated
variation on the black square: flag
variation on the black square: under construction
variation on the black square: at night
variation on the black square: balanced
graphic work: robert e. houkes design: robert e. houkes reprint from 2014 publisher: DogPrint Books 2021 ISBN: 978-90-821710-0-6 copyright: this work shall not, by he way of trade or otherwise, be lent, (re)sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated in any form or binding others than that in which it is published. Rotterdam, the Netherlands, January 2021
On 19 december 1915, the exhibition 0,10 openend its doors in Petrograd (Petersburg). Here Malevich presented entirely abstract paintings which seems to be depicting a cosmic world, not a physical one. These works proclaimed the supremacy of color and shape. He (nick-) named his new artistic proposal Suprematism. It was the art of pure creation and the gallery went transformed into what he called a Suprematist space. High in the corner of this space hung Black Square, a place traditionally reserved for religious icons. Black Square is Malevich most radical work and represents the archetype of Suprematism.
Kazimir Malevich
this text is based on information given by the exhibtion “Malevich” at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, 2013/2014
DogPrintBooks 2021