3X3 variations on the black square

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