Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism

Essay from the exhibition catalogue Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism.

Investigating the birth of the Suprematist movement, this essay travels through the artist's professional life, his artistic growth, and the ebb and flow of Malevich's popularity in Russia and abroad. Matthew Drutt focuses on Malevich as a singular artist, as an influential teacher, and as an isolated visionary struggling with hostile Soviet bureaucracy and the overwhelming domination of Realist academies at the time.


Excerpt
A complete departure from any pictorial method theretofore recognized in art, Suprematism was characterized by Malevich as "that end and beginning where sensations are uncovered, where art emerges 'as such.'" He adopted many guises in the service of this new art, from teacher and administrator to theorist and aesthete, all fashioned to bring about a sea change in the way people thought about art and its impact upon the world around them.