Term coined in 1915 by Kazimir Malevich for a new system of art, explained in his booklet Ot kubizma i futurizma k suprematizmu: Novyy zhivopisnyy realizm (‘From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: the new realism in painting’). The term itself implied the supremacy of this new art in relation to the past Malevich saw it as purely aesthetic and concerned only with form, free from any political or social meaning He stressed the purity of shape, particularly of the square, and he regarded Suprematism as primarily an exploration of visual language comparable to contemporary developments in writing Suprematist paintings were first displayed at the exhibition. Poslednyaya futuristicheskaya vystavka kartin: 010 held in Petrograd (now St Petersburg) in December 1915; they comprised geometric forms which appeared to float against a white background While Suprematism began before the Revolution of 1917, its influence of Malevich’s radical approach to art, was pervasive in the early Soviet period.
Birth of the movement
Kazimir Malevich developed the concept of Suprematism when he was already an established painter, having exhibited in the Donkey's Tail and the Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) exhibitions of 1912 with cubo-futurist works. The proliferation of new artistic forms in painting, poetry and theatre as well as a revival of interest in the traditional folk art of Russia provided a rich environment in which a Modernist culture was born.
In "Suprematism" (Part II of his book The Non-Objective World, which was published 1927 in Munich as Bauhaus Book No. 11), Malevich clearly stated the core concept of Suprematism:
Under Suprematism I understand the primacy of pure feeling in creative art. To the Suprematist, the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth.
He created a suprematist "grammar" based on fundamental geometric forms; in particular, the square and the circle. In the 0.10 Exhibition in 1915, Malevich exhibited his early experiments in suprematist painting. The centerpiece of his show was the Black Square, placed in what is called the red/beautiful corner in Russian Orthodox tradition; the place of the main icon in a house. "Black Square" was painted in 1915 and was presented as a breakthrough in his career and in art in general. Malevich also painted White on White which was also heralded as a milestone. "White on White" marked a shift from polychrome to monochrome Suprematism.
Distinct from Constructivism
Malevich's Suprematism is fundamentally opposed to the postrevolutionary positions of Constructivism and materialism. Constructivism, with its cult of the object, is concerned with utilitarian strategies of adapting art to the principles of functional organization. Under Constructivism, the traditional easel painter is transformed into the artist-as-engineer in charge of organizing life in all of its aspects.
Suprematism, in sharp contrast to Constructivism, embodies a profoundly anti-materialist, anti-utilitarian philosophy. In "Suprematism" (Part II of The Non-Objective World), Malevich writes:
Art no longer cares to serve the state and religion, it no longer wishes to illustrate the history of manners, it wants to have nothing further to do with the object, as such, and believes that it can exist, in and for itself, without "things" (that is, the "time-tested well-spring of life").
Jean-Claude Marcadé has observed that "Despite superficial similarities between Constructivism and Suprematism, the two movements are nevertheless antagonists and it is very important to distinguish between them." According to Marcadé, confusion has arisen because several artists—either directly associated with Suprematism such as El Lissitzky or working under the suprematist influence as did Rodchenko and Lyubov Popova—later abandoned Suprematism for the culture of materials.
Suprematism does not embrace a humanist philosophy which places man at the center of the universe. Rather, Suprematism envisions man—the artist—as both originator and transmitter of what for Malevich is the world's only true reality—that of absolute non-objectivity.
...a blissful sense of liberating non-objectivity drew me forth into a "desert", where nothing is real except feeling... ("Suprematism", Part II of The Non-Objective World)
For Malevich, it is upon the foundations of absolute non-objectivity that the future of the universe will be built - a future in which appearances, objects, comfort, and convenience no longer dominate.
Influences on the movement
Malevich also credited the birth of suprematism to Victory Over the Sun, Kruchenykh's Futurist opera production for which he designed the sets and costumes in 1913. The aim of the artists involved was to break with the usual theater of the past and to use a "clear, pure, logical Russian language". Malevich put this to practice by creating costumes from simple materials and thereby took advantage of geometric shapes. Flashing headlights illuminated the figures in such a way that alternating hands, legs or heads disappeared into the darkness. The stage curtain was a black square. One of the drawings for the backcloth shows a black square divided diagonally into a black and a white triangle. Because of the simplicity of these basic forms they were able to signify a new beginning.
Another important influence on Malevich were the ideas of the Russian mystic, philosopher, and disciple of Georges Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, who wrote of "a fourth dimension or a Fourth Way beyond the three to which our ordinary senses have access".
Some of the titles to paintings in 1915 express the concept of a non-Euclidean geometry which imagined forms in movement, or through time; titles such as: Two dimensional painted masses in the state of movement. These give some indications towards an understanding of the Suprematic compositions produced between 1915 and 1918.
The Supremus journal
The Supremus group, which in addition to Malevich included Aleksandra Ekster, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Ivan Kliun, Lyubov Popova, Lazar Khidekel, Nikolai Suetin, Ilya Chashnik, Nina Genke-Meller, Ivan Puni and Ksenia Boguslavskaya, met from 1915 onwards to discuss the philosophy of Suprematism and its development into other areas of intellectual life. The products of these discussions were to be documented in a monthly publication called Supremus, titled to reflect the art movement it championed, that would include painting, music, decorative art, and literature. Malevich conceived of the journal as the contextual foundation in which he could base his art, and originally planned to call the journal Nul. In a letter to a colleague, he explained:
We are planning to put out a journal and have begun to discuss the how and what of it. Since in it we intend to reduce everything to zero, we have decided to call it Nul. Afterward we ourselves will go beyond zero.
Malevich conceived of the journal as a space for experimentation that would test his theory of nonobjective art. The group of artists wrote several articles for the initial publication, including the essays "The Mouth of the Earth and the Artist" (Malevich), "On the Old and the New in Music" (Matiushin), "Cubism, Futurism, Suprematism" (Rozanova), "Architecture as a Slap in the Face to Ferroconcrete" (Malevich), and "The Declaration of the Word as Such" (Kruchenykh). However, despite a year spent planning and writing articles for the journal, the first issue of Supremus was never published.
El Lissitzky: a bridge to the west
The most important artist who took the art form and ideas developed by Malevich and popularized them abroad was the painter El Lissitzky. Lissitzky worked intensively with Suprematism particularly in the years 1919 to 1923. He was deeply impressed by Malevich's Suprematist works as he saw it as the theoretical and visual equivalent of the social upheavals taking place in Russia at the time. Suprematism, with its radicalism, was to him the creative equivalent of an entirely new form of society. Lissitzky transferred Malevich’s approach to his Proun constructions, which he himself described as "the station where one changes from painting to architecture". The Proun designs, however, were also an artistic break from Suprematism; the "Black Square" by Malevich was the end point of a rigorous thought process that required new structural design work to follow. Lissitzky saw this new beginning in his Proun constructions, where the term "Proun" (Pro Unovis) symbolized its Suprematist origins.
Lissitzky exhibited in Berlin in 1923 at the Hanover and Dresden showrooms of Non-Objective Art. During this trip to the West, El Lissitzky was in close contact with Theo van Doesburg, forming a bridge between Suprematism and De Stijl and the Bauhaus.
Suprematism in applied art
In 1918, Malevich first directed at the First and Second Free Artistic Workshops in Moscow the Studio of Painting and - together with Nadezhda Udaltsova - the class for Textile Design. From the autumn of 1919 he continued his teaching at the Art School of Vitebsk (near Minsk, Belarus). Marc Chagall was already working there, though he represented a different conception of art. The directional struggles temporarily had a paralyzing effect on school operations; Ultimately, however, it was Malevich who prevailed and formed the art school of Vitebsk into a suprematist center. The suprematist center included Wera Jermolajewa, El Lissitzky, Warwara Stepanowa and Nathan Altman. In parallel, Malevich held until the mid-1920s important functions in art committees.
Both as a teacher and as a member of art committees, Malevich influenced the formal language of sculptors, architects and artisans. In Witebsk, together with other artists, he founded the group Unovis, whose goal was to form a Suprematist view of art and the world. In a Unovis leaflet of November 20, 1920 states:
"Not only the designers of art we call to action, to the vote and to the movement, but also our comrades, the blacksmiths, locksmiths, medics, stonemasons, concreting, foundry, carpenters, machine-builders, aviators, stonecutter, tusker, textile worker, tailor, Modists, and all those who produce the practically-useful thing-world, under the uniform banner of the unovision, all together put on the earth the dress of the new form and the meaning. "
The style extended to all areas of visual arts, such as painting, sculpture, typography, architecture, poster art and design (furniture, porcelain). Among other things, Vitebsk's food ration stamps were suprematistically designed at the time of the " war economy "; Ilja Tschaschnik, Malevich's research assistant during his leadership of the State Institute of Artistic Culture (GINChUK), designed crockery for the Lomonosov Porcelain Manufactory based on the ideas of Suprematism. Malevich himself also designed porcelain; his teapot, designed by him, in which colored squares, bar shapes and circles float on white porcelain, can be found today in many design collections such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The application of suprematist principles in the arts and crafts had begun very early. The exhibition of a Moscow gallery already showed in November 1915 modern arts and crafts, were implemented in the suprematist designs of Ivan Puni and Alexandra Exter of women from Ukrainian villages. A second arts and crafts exhibition followed in December 1917 in the Moscow Michailowa Salon, where suprematist design was often applied in the form of embroidery. In addition to Malevich, Lyubov Popova, Olga Rosanova and Exter had supplied designs for the works, which included pillowcases, scarves and handbags.
Architecture
Lazar Khidekel (1904-1986), Suprematist artist and visionary architect, was the only Suprematist architect who emerged from the Malevich circle. Khidekel started his study in architecture in Vitebsk art school under El Lissitzky in 1919-20. He was instrumental in the transition from planar Suprematism to volumetric Suprematism, creating axonometric projections (The Aero-club: Horizontal architecton, 1922–23), making three-dimensional models, such as the architectons, designing objects (model of an "Ashtray", 1922–23), and producing the first Suprematist architectural project (The Workers’ Club, 1926). In the mid-1920s, he began his journey into the realm of visionary architecture. Directly inspired by Suprematism and its notion of an organic form-creation continuum, he explored new philosophical, scientific and technological futuristic approaches, and proposed innovative solutions for the creation of new urban environments, where people would live in harmony with nature and would be protected from man-made and natural disasters (his still topical proposal for flood protection - the City on the Water, 1925, etc.).
Nikolai Suetin used Suprematist motifs on works at the St. Petersburg Lomonosov Porcelain Factory where Malevich and Chashnik were also employed, and Malevich designed a Suprematist teapot. The Suprematists also made architectural models in the 1920s which offered a different conception of socialist buildings to those developed in Constructivist architecture.
Malevich's architectural projects were known after 1922 Arkhitektoniki. Designs emphasized the right angle, with similarities to De Stijl and Le Corbusier, and were justified with an ideological connection to communist governance and equality for all. Another part of the formalism was low regard for triangles which were "dismissed as ancient, pagan, or Christian".
The first Suprematist Architectural project was created by Lazar Khidekel in 1926. In the mid 1920s to 1932 Lazar Khidekel also created a series of futuristic projects such as Aero-City, Garden-City, and City Over Water.
In the 21st Century, architect Zaha Hadid aimed to realize Malevich's work and advance Suprematism by building a completely abstract building.
Social context
This development in artistic expression came about when Russia was in a revolutionary state, ideas were in ferment, and the old order was being swept away. As the new order became established, and Stalinism took hold from 1924 on, the state began limiting the freedom of artists. From the late 1920s the Russian avant-garde experienced direct and harsh criticism from the authorities and in 1934 the doctrine of Socialist Realism became official policy, and prohibited abstraction and divergence of artistic expression. Malevich nevertheless retained his main conception. In his self-portrait of 1933 he represented himself in a traditional way—the only way permitted by Stalinist cultural policy—but signed the picture with a tiny black-over-white square.
Changing acceptance in the new Russia
For the brief period from 1917 to 1921, the political and artistic revolution went hand in hand. Supported by People's Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky, a "new" art could develop without the direct interference of the state. In this early phase of the revolution, the new language of form was also used for political propaganda, and slogans designed on suprematist motifs appeared on the walls of the houses. Malevich's biographer Stachelhaus calls this "an irony of art history", because with the " New Economic Policy"Proclaimed by the government from 1921, the postulate of the spiritual freedom of Suprematism was incompatible. Suprematism meant non-objective art without purpose and purpose. The "New Economic Policy", on the other hand, demanded an art that could be politically functionalized. This demand finally resulted in Socialist Realism.
According to the new communist government, Malevich's art was incomprehensible as a product of bourgeois art tradition and the proletariat. Even the liberal art commissioner Lunacharsky could not prevent Malewitsch increasingly fell into the reputation of a decadent formalist. The State Institute of Artistic Culture (GINChUk), which was directed by Malevich, was closed in 1926, and a publication of Malevich's theory of supplementary elements in painting was suppressed.
In the spring of 1927, Malevich traveled to Germany to examine the possibility of working at the Bauhaus. Although the Bauhaus was also influenced by Malevich's artistic ideas through El Lissitzky, the views of the Bauhaus and Malevich were too different for Malewitsch to be able to work there. Although the Bauhaus published in 1927 in his book series Malevich's The Objectless World, but wrote in the preface: "We are pleased to publish the present work of the important Russian painter Malevich in the series of Bauhaus books, although it differs in fundamental questions from our point of view. "
While an exhibition of works by Malevich was shown in Berlin, he returned to Russia on June 5, 1927, leaving his paintings behind in the West. The radical change that occurs in Malevich's painting after his return to Russia is considered by some art historians as his attempt to recreate the paintings left behind in Berlin. He broke away from Suprematism and re-painted in a late-impressionist and Cubo-Futurist style, taking up his people and peasant portrayals as he had created before his Suprematist era. He dated many of his paintings back. His paintings created in the last years, however, in which he refers to the pictorial language of the Italian Renaissance are signed by him with a small black square.
The suppression of suprematism in Russian art perception has lasted for a long time. In the preface to the exhibition catalog Russian Art of the 20th Century, Russian Vitalij S. Manin wrote in 1984 about the art scene at the beginning of the 20th century:
"The Russian art life of the pre-revolution was characterized by its color, by the variety of emerging and sometimes very short-lived art innovations. Some styles of this period were the pride of Russian art, others were a kind of preliminary study for later reflection, the third long served as a breeding ground for a multitude of creative by-paths, through the time very complex and even with noticeable resonance in the Soviet art of later years. "
Suprematism, one of the most important art developments of this period, is not mentioned.
The rehabilitation of the avant-garde of Russian art in the first third of the 20th century took place only with perestroika. It was only in 1988 that there was a comprehensive retrospective in St. Petersburg with works by Malevich.
Notable exhibitions
Historic Exhibitions
Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art at Lemercier Gallery, Moscow, 1915
The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0.10 at Galerie Dobychina, Petrograd, 1915
First Russian Art Exhibition at Galerie Van Diemen, Berlin, 1922
First State Exhibition of Local and Moscow Artists, Vitebsk, 1919
Exhibition of Paintings by Petrograd Artists of All Trends, 1918-1923, Petrograd, 1923
Retrospective Exhibitions
The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1992
Malevich’s Circle. Confederates. Students. Followers in Russia 1920s-1950s at The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, 2000
Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2003
Zaha Hadid and Suprematism at Galerie Gmurzynska, Zürich, 2010
Lazar Khidekel: Surviving Suprematism at Judah L. Magnes Museum, Berkeley CA, 2004-2005
Lazar Markovich Khidekel – the Rediscovered Suprematist at House Konstruktiv, Zurich, 2010-2011
Kazimir Malevich and the Russian Avant-Garde at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2013
Malevich: Revolutionary of Russian Art at the Tate Modern, London, 2014
Floating Worlds and Future Cities. Genius of Lazar Khidekel, Suprematism and Russian Avant-garde. NYC, 2013
Artists associated with Suprematism
Kazimir Malevich
El Lissitsky
Ilya Chashnik
Lazar Khidekel
Alexandra Exter
Lyubov Popova
Sergei Senkin
Source from Wikipedia
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