The era of 1910-1920s witnessed the Russian avant-garde art movement. This was the era when some unknown names rose to fame and recognition. Names that nobody had every heard until 1915 ended up starting a revolution.
It was during this time when Russian avant-garde artists prepared to show their latest work in a ramshackle Petrograd apartment. Kazimir Malevich said that he had exclusively and closely developed a method of painting that would obliterate Western Art. And as this statement led to a lot of rumors and apprehensions, people started guessing what might he be referring to. All the discussions came to a halt on December 19th 1915, when Malevich, along with his fellow artists, displayed a roomful of paintings under the headline “Suprematism.”
Malevich and the Uniqueness that Drove Him
The art that was displayed that day was nothing like what was then considered normal. It was something that was never seen to date. The Petrograd exhibition broke all the norms that would have been called exhibition. The name—0,10—was highly mysterious too. And going by its name, the paintings took mystery a level higher. The paintings had arrangements of colored, geometric shapes floating on a background of white.
The paintings were not only different but also difficult to interpret. It garnered the attention of all art aficionados and critics. They had exclusive titles like Painterly Realism of a Football Player – Color Masses in the Fourth Dimension. The starkest artwork was a white canvas painted with a simple, black square. This painting was hung high in a corner where Orthodox families generally prefer to place a religious icon. The painting shook the traditionalists.
Malevich attempted this brave and different art form to create a revolution. The aim was to initiate a movement that liberated painting from depiction. He wanted to pose a challenge to artistic conventions which was somewhat similar to the ones seen in Foundation Beyeler’s partial reconstruction of the historic 1915 exhibit. He tried to mix and elaborate together various art forms. He wanted to build a revolutionary tendency toward abstraction in addition to break the dependency on external reality that was inherited in Cubism and Futurism. He advanced Picasso’s Cubist compositions that introduced new methods of depiction. Malevich had every right to be proud of himself, because his idea of Suprematism was a major achievement in the history of art.
Tatlin Brought in Revolution with His Wood and Metal Construction
Tatlin’s movement was not absolute in the avant-garde art movement. In that very Petrograd apartment, a selection of Vladimir Tatlin’s wood-and-metal constructions was found. And it was not the first instance of them being displayed, as Tatlin had shown them earlier. Several works of art were exhibited earlier in 1915 when there was a group show of Russian avant-gardists. It was this radicalism at display that formed a part of Malevich’s revolution.
Malevich had a strong determination to lead avant-garde towards a non-representational future in painting. However, he was paranoid, and his anxiety and fear were justified by the urge to play grand marshal in Russia’s artistic triumph over the West.
Tatlin and Malevich wanted to question the conventional rules followed by Western Art. Their work now gets a museum reboot so that the thought process reaches the maximum number of people.
Be the first to comment on "Tatlin and Malevich Get an Exciting Museum Reboot for Their 1915 Exhibit Art"