Kazimir Malevich and the Russian Avant-Garde

Kazimir Malevich,The Woodcutter (recto)/ Peasant Women
in Church (verso),
1912. Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Russian painter Kazimir Malevich founded the new art movement Suprematism in 1915. Suprematism aims to create abstract depictions that are in themselves pure forms of art rather than visual reproductions of worldly items. The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, owner of the largest collection of Malevich’s works outside of Russia, offers a retrospective of the painter’s influential career through some 350 paintings and by studying Malevich’s relations with other artists of his time.

Along with his Russian colleagues, Malevich was shaped heavily by the French art movements of Impressionism and Cubism. But these avant-garde artists gradually sensed the end of the era of Western European paintings. They believed the new movement would come from the east and turned to Russian art, studying folk and religious tales, prints with folk themes and Russian icons. The artists used deep red, green and yellow in their works, and Malevich, too, contrasted striking colors in his portrayals of farm laborers.

Kazimir Malevich, Suprematism: Self-Portrait in
Two Dimensions, 1915.
Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

In 1915, Malevich suddenly presented new works in an exhibit titled “0.10.” They were paintings of simple geometric shapes like circles, rectangles and crosses painted in key colors of black, red, blue and yellow on white backgrounds. Malevich defied conventions of reproducing reality such as in his renderings of depth, and he asserted Suprematism as a victory of colors and shape against reality. Our current program reproduces this 1915 “0.1” exhibit. Near the ceiling where a Russian home would normally place an icon, is displayed Black Square, as a new icon of art.

Malevich’s sudden shift to pure, abstract painting remains a mystery but some believe it was caused by his involvement two years prior to “0.1” with the avant-garde opera Victory Over the Sun. Written by futurist poet Aleksei Kruchonykh with music by Mikhail Matyushin, Malevich created the stage designs and costumes. Similar to his paintings, the costumes incorporated key colors and simple forms such as cubes and cylinders. The stage that symbolized night and day was comprised of black and white simple structures as if to foreshadow the later dawn of Suprematism. A video of this opera production, Malevich’s costume designs and his stage design sketches are a key display of our exhibit.


Kazimir Malevich and the Russian Avant-Garde
19 Oct. 2013 – 2 Feb. 2014

Stedelijkmuseum Amsterdam

Museumplein 10
1071 DJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
www.stedelijk.nl/en

Opening times:

Monday to Sunday　10:00-18:00 (Thursday till 22:00)