Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection Kazimir Malevich by Diane Waldman and Mimi Poser, 1974 MIMI POSER Good evening. This is Mimi Poser at the Guggenheim. Until 1958, the paintings of Russian artist Kazimir Malevich were largely unknown to the Western world. At that time, a collection of his work, which Malevich had left in Berlin in late 1927, was acquired by the Stedelijk Museum. And I might add parenthetically, at this time, that Malevich was in Berlin with an exhibition of his work, was recalled to Russia, probably for political reasons, and, at that time, left his paintings with his friend, the German architect, Dr. Hugo Häring, and he never again left Russia. Now to continue. Until last month, when the Stedelijk Collection came to the Guggenheim, most Americans, unless they traveled to Amsterdam, had hardly ever seen Maleviches. There are very few of his paintings in this country. The current exhibition [00:01:00] begins with his early, largely derivative work, goes on to his most important period, suprematism, and includes several very beautiful examples of the white-on-white paintings of this period. With us this evening is Diane Waldman, the Guggenheim’s Curator of Exhibitions, who organized this show. Mrs. Waldman appeared on this program several weeks ago to discuss Malevich, and we ran out of time and, of course, never got to many topics, so, this evening, we want to discuss Malevich’s mature style, compare his work with that of two other non-objective painters of his time, Kandinsky and Mondrian, and also Malevich’s influence on contemporary art. Good evening and welcome, Diane. DIANE WALDMAN Good evening. MIMI POSER Before we get to that, would you, for the benefit of those who didn’t hear the earlier program, give us a word about Malevich himself and the work preceding the suprematist period? [00:02:00] DIANE WALDMAN To put it very briefly, Malevich was born in 1878, near Kiev, in Russia, in what was then considered to be a very poor situation. His father worked in a sugar refinery. His mother is thought to have been nearly illiterate. As Malevich himself said, he had virtually no introduction to art, never understood what it represented, and had no idea that one could make either a living from art or a lifestyle from being an artist. It was not until several years later, when he went with his father to Kursk, near Kiev, that he saw his first painting, a canvas in the window of a shop, and, shortly thereafter, he saw a painter painting the roof of a house green, and he began to emulate him. These notations that I mention are from Malevich’s own essays, some of which have [00:03:00] been translated into English by Troels Andersen, who was considered the leading historian on Malevich. As Andersen points out, Malevich moved to Moscow in 1902, after the death of his father, and it was there that he became involved with the Russian avant-garde. In the early part of the twentieth century, the Russian avant-garde was exposed to many movements, which can be seen in Malevich’s early works. Among the most important influences on his early work are Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 1 of 7 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection Kazimir Malevich by Diane Waldman and Mimi Poser, 1974 those of Matisse, whose work was collected by two major collectors in Moscow, and the works of Picasso, [Durand?], Braque -- in other words, all of the major avant-garde movements in France were quickly transported to Russia, either by the collectors themselves or by reproductions. [00:04:00] Malevich went through a series of paintings that show the influence of neo-impressionism, of cubism, before he developed his mature style of suprematism. MIMI POSER Wasn’t there also an influence of German expressionist -- Burliuk was supposed to have been the go-between between Munich and Moscow? DIANE WALDMAN Yes, I think it’s reflected in a number of his early works. I think what I would consider the hedonistic color of early works of, I’d say, 1908 to 1910 is clearly reflective of German expressionism, and I have used Nolde as a point of reference because I think the color clearly comes, in part, from German expressionism. I also think what one could call the very heightened color in his early paintings comes from Russian folk art, which became a very important part of the self-awareness in Russia [00:05:00] before the teens, and among the Russian avant-garde, which include such painters as Larionov and Goncharova. MIMI POSER Well, they were the leading practitioners of neo-Primitivism, were they not? DIANE WALDMAN Yes, I think they were, and I think Malevich was involved with them until he broke with Larionov in 1912. MIMI POSER Among other breaks that he made during his life. (laughter) DIANE WALDMAN Yeah. MIMI POSER He must have been a very bad-tempered man. DIANE WALDMAN I think he had (laughs) a rather difficult temperament, to say the least. I also think he moved very quickly through a number of styles, and I think that one can see, in the remarkably short time, virtually, in history of the avant-garde in Europe, reflected in his work from his early paintings of about 1904, which are post-impressionist in flavor, to his introduction of suprematism, which is now considered to have originated in 1915, although he himself [00:06:00] says that he conceived of it in 1913. MIMI POSER Would you like to mention the circumstances under which he said he conceived this, or in which he said he conceived suprematism? DIANE WALDMAN Transcript © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). All rights reserved. Page 2 of 7 Guggenheim Museum Archives Reel-to-Reel collection Kazimir Malevich by Diane Waldman and Mimi Poser, 1974 There is a lot of information that has still to be clarified. A number of his papers and documents have not been translated into English, however, in 1913, Malevich was involved in designing the sets for an opera, Victory Over the Sun, which was given two performances in St. Petersburg in December, 1913. The sets consisted of the use of what he later considered the suprematist elements. This is in great contradiction to the work that he was doing at the time, in 1913, which was largely cubist. MIMI POSER I think it’s very interesting that, because of this opera, he was able to work in what we now call a non-objective style. [00:07:00] And you and I have had discussions on: what was it that liberated him to be able to work in this non-objective style. I think, at this point, I’d like to quote from John Bowlt’s article, which appeared in ARTnews, and read to our audience what the opera was like. He says, and I quote, “In the opera, a group of strong men, who are dark of face, and whose light is within, capture the sun and liberate it from the weight of universal gravity. All concrete phenomena take on a perverse mirror-like quality. Part of the text was written in zaum, a trans-rational language of neologisms based on existing roots. The music was discordant, although not atonal. Malevich’s sets and costumes were correspondingly illogical, including the famous, but still perplexing, abstract backdrop for the last scene.” And I think perhaps, in part, this explains that, two years before the appearance of the first real suprematist painting, [00:08:00] he was working in a non-objective way. It seems that he was liberated by the music, which is totally abstract -- [after all, music is abstract?] -- and the world of ideas, which was being presented in this play. And, after all, people do accept ideas as being abstract. This seems to have given him the freedom to become visually abstract long before -- two years, in fact, before he was able to do it with his paintings. DIANE WALDMAN Yeah, I think perhaps that it was easier for him to experiment with virtual abstraction in sets, rather than arrive at such an extreme solution in his own painting. And, as I said before, I think that he really had, literally, to work through a number of styles before he could free himself from the need to work with some form of representation, and I think that the opera gave him the perfect excuse. [00:09:00] He was also working in collaboration with a number of Russians who were very much in the avant-garde at that time and very involved with abstraction, per se, in terms of music, in terms of literature. And I think that, perhaps, as a collective movement, the opera provided him with the impetus to test something that he himself did not, in fact, formulate until two years later. This is something that I have witnessed in connection with my own contemporaries, people that have discussed ideas, someone like Roy Lichtenstein, for example, who has discussed an idea for a series that he himself does not actually work out until a year or two later. It isn’t uncommon. I find in Malevich the fact that he was fairly methodical in arriving at this working out of virtual abstraction [00:10:00] to be, it seems to me, the most plausible reason for the gap between 1913, when he did the sets, and the introduction of suprematism, which, after all, took place at an exhibition in 1915, so that, in the interim, he must have been experimenting with paintings which he chose not to show until 1915.