Suprematism; The Last Futurist Exhibition of Painting

"0.10 The Last Futurist Exhibition of Painting"             

                Suprematism was an art movement founded in Russia during the First World War. The first hints of it emerged in background and costume sketches that Kazimir Malevich designed in 1913 for Victory Over the Sun, a Futurist opera performed in St. Petersburg. Suprematist painting abandoned realism, which Malevich considered a distraction from the transcendental experience that the art was meant to evoke. Suprematism can be seen as the logical conclusion of Futurism's interest in movement and Cubism's reduced forms and multiple perspectives. Of particular importance is the Black Square, which Malevich called "the face of a new art" and  became the centerpiece of his new movement. 

In 1915, the Russian artists Kseniya Boguslavskaya, Ivan Klyun, Mikhail Menkov, Ivan Puni and Olga Rozanova joined with Kazimir Malevich to form the Suprematist group. Together, they unveiled their new work to the public at 0.10, The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings (1915). The title 0.10 refers to the intended goal of the exhibition to present ten artists seeking the essential core the —"zero"—of painting. In the end, fourteen artists exhibited but the title remained the same. Their work feature an array of geometric shapes suspended above a white or light-colored background. The variety of shapes, sizes and angles creates a sense of depth in these compositions, making the squares, circles and rectangles appear to be moving in space.

The Suprematists' interest in abstraction was fired by a search for the 'zero degree' of painting, the point beyond which the medium could not go without ceasing to be art. This encouraged the use of very simple motifs, since they best articulated the shape and flat surface of the canvases on which they were painted. (Ultimately, the square, circle, and cross became the group's favorite motifs.) It also encouraged many Suprematists to emphasize the surface texture of the paint on canvas, this texture being another essential quality of the medium of painting.

Ivan Puni, Poster for 0.10 (Zero-Ten) The Last Futurist 

Exhibition of Painting, 1915. Private collection, Zurich.

Olga Rozanova, Ksenia Boguslavskaia, and Kazimir Malevich 

seated in front of Malevich’s Suprematist 

paintings at 0.10 (Zero-Ten) The Last Futurist Exhibition of 

Painting, Petrograd, 1915.

WEB PAGE
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-suprematism.htm
http://www.dmoma.org/lobby/exhibitions/blockheads/gallery/futurist.html
http://www.artic.edu/aic/resources/resource/3031