Scandal, 100 years later
Shatskikh [2012] placed the creation of Black Square on June 8 (old calendar), 1915, or 21 June in the Gregorian calendar. Malevich’s insight to eclipse all non-objective figuration with a black square, creating the “zero point” for painting, came suddenly. Indeed, he painted over a non-objective composition. His later comments to colleagues and students included “fiery lightning bolts crossing the canvas in front of him” and afterwards “he could not eat, drink, or sleep for a full week” [Shatskikh 2012: 45].
Black Square, 1915
Malevich’s self-reported impact of this insight helped Shatskikh respond to the uproar that occurred in 2015. The director of Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery announced that new analyses of Black Square (housed in the gallery) revealed penciled-and-erased writing in the white border of the painting: “A battle of negroes”[1] [Nueendorf 2015; Shatskikh 2017; Grovier 2018; Vakar 2018]. The director noted that the handwriting was that of Malevich. Vakar [2015, translated 2018] concluded that Malevich penciled this inscription shortly after completing the painting, and erased it when he recognized the significance of the painting. Shatskikh [2017] vehemently disagreed, arguing that Malevich immediately recognized the significance of the painting, and that the painting, painted in oil over another Suprematist painting[2] that had not yet fully dried, would not have been dry enough for penciling and erasing for years. She implied that the penciled comment was an act of “inscribed vandalism” during the 50 years when Malevich was a non-entity and avant-garde art was officially reviled in the Soviet state.
[1] The phrase almost certainly alludes to a late- nineteenth century French satirical painting, titled A Battle of Negroes at Night and, in a reprinting, A Battle of Negroes in a Cave on a Dark Night.
[2] which itself was painted over an earlier painting by Malevich. Painting over a not-fully dry oil painting is probably what caused the severe cracking of the black paint in Black Square.
Grovier, Kelly. 2018. The racist message hidden in a masterpiece. BBC Culture, 12 March. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180312-the-racist-message-hidden-in-a-masterpiece, accessed 22 Nov 2020.
Grovier, Kelly. 2018. The racist message hidden in a masterpiece. BBC Culture, 12 March. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180312-the-racist-message-hidden-in-a-masterpiece, accessed 22 Nov 2020.
Neuendorf, Henri. 2015. X-ray analysis gives shocking new insights into Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square. Artnet, 13 November. https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/kizimir-malevich-black-square-363368, accessed 22 Nov 2020.
Shatskikh, Aleksandra, trans. by Marian Schwartz. 2012. Black Square: Malevich and the Origin of Suprematism. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Shatskikh, Aleksandra. 2017. Inscribed vandalism: The Black Square at one hundred. e-flux journal #85 (October). https://www.e-flux.com/journal/85/155475/inscribed-vandalism-the-black-square-at-one-hundred, accessed 21 Nov 2020.
Vakar, Irina, trans. by Antonina Bouis. 2018. Kazimir Malevich: The Black Square. Köln: Verlag der Buchlandlung Walther König.