The Adventures of the Black Square. Tatyana Goryacheva, Irina Karasik, Anastasia Karlova, and etc. 2007

the philosophical pedestal into the sphere of applied art and mass culture. Both the motif itself and the devices of argumentation found here are often encountered in Russian art today.
The history of the modern relationship with the Black Square begins with Vladimir Sterligov, whose name is synonymous with the return of the square. A former student of Malevich, he passed the symbolical baton down to new generations — although few were subsequently able or wanted to uphold the “dialogue of outlooks” proposed by Sterligov. The artist's collage (1960) can be regarded as a programmed composition. Sterligov's cupola — a plastic and meaningful module of a new picture of the world, based on the principles of curvature, mutual penetration, common links and concord with nature — encounters Malevich's square. The square is placed inside the cupola: the new system has imbibed the old one and built on its foundations. Sterligov, however, does not rescind

the square. Malevich's form remains as potent and viable as ever. Sterligov develops, supplements and “pacifies” reducing its ambitions and increasing the “meditative potential of Malevich's symbol.”
More recently, possibly only Yury Zlotnikov has engaged the Black Square in a “dialogue of outlooks” methodologically similar to that of Sterligov. In 1988, he created a polemical work entitled Antithesis of Kazimir Malevich's Black Square. Zlotnikov does not so much interpret Malevich as reply to his summons. The artist opposes Suprematism with his own plastic concept, forcing the square to submit to its laws.

The relationship between modern art and the Black Square has its own distinct phases, characterised by a passion for definite types of interpretation. It has its own chronological peaks, when the number of appeals to the original source grew and the thickness of the “layer” increased. Most works referring back to the Black Square were created in the decade following the Moscow/Paris exhibition (1981), when Malevich's masterpiece was shown after an interval of almost fifty years. Many saw it there for the first time. After the master’s one-man show in Leningrad, Moscow and Amsterdam (1988-89), young artists joined in the process. The peak of interpretative activity fell on the early 1990s. After that, although interest in Malevich's creation remained stable, it could no longer be classified as a “boom.”
Among the diverse array of interpretations of the Black Square, certain “force fields” stand out, around which individual versions are grouped. One of them belongs to the tradition of geometric abstraction, including specimens of “direct action” based on the definite issue of form (Francisco Infante and Vyacheslav Koleichuk) or, more often, examples of an analytical direction, when the plastic form is perceived as a ready image. Another — and the most powerful — field is postmodernist reflexive strategies, which address the Black Square as an idea, meaning, sign or generator of associations. This multiple field is dominated by techniques for manipulating a “foreign subject” with the help of such devices as quotations, appropriations, intellectual games and irony. The Suprematist “cell” is employed in the form of a conceptual readymade, placed in new circumstances or unexpected contexts. The stereotypes of perception, mechanisms of myth creation and the forms of the socio-cultural functioning of Malevich’s image are also subjected to artistic investigation.
The special frenzy with which the Black Square was perceived — whether it was acceptance or rejection, or the choice of concrete ways of appealing to the source — was a direct result of the historical background. For many years, there had been an unwritten ban on the Russian avant-garde as a whole and Malevich's main work in particular. Such isolation led to a clear breakdown in the natural laws of succession regarding form-creation and subject-matter. This explains why Russia did not have the same geometric tradition as the West. Examples of an internal, natural reaction to the master’s discoveries — not always implicitly understood as such — in which Malevich is not the theme of the work, but the main issue, stimulating certain artistic ideas, are therefore extremely rare.
One of the most exciting and independent responses to Malevich's “summons” was the oeuvre of Boris Turetsky. The heroes of his works of the late 1950s and early 1960s are lonely black forms. As Yevgeny Barabanov correctly noted, the artist addresses Malevich's key issue of the “zero position” — in a version remarkably similar to the ten-

transparencies, photography, cinema and modern technologies. Collaborated with Natalia Abalakova (from early 1970s). Member of the Aptartmovement and founder of the Moscow Archive of New Art. Lives and works in Moscow.

ZLOTNIKOY, Yury
Born 1930, Moscow
Painter, graphic artist. Graduated from secondary school of art in Moscow (1950). Studied sculpture at the Anna Golubkina Museum and listened to lectures at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Worked as a designer at the Exhibition of Economic Achievements (1951-59). Trained at the Bolshoi Theatre (from 1954). Created abstract works (1955-56). Contributed to exhibitions in private apartments (from 1956) and abroad (from 1988). Active member of the nonconformist movernent. Member of the Union of Artists (1974). One ofthe founding fathers and leading representatives of the Moscow school of abstract art of the second half ofthe twentieth century. Represented by works in the Tretyakov Gallery, Russian Museum and in private collections in Russia and abroad. Lives and works in Moscow.

ZUBKOV, Gennady
Born 1940, Perm
Painter, graphic artist, teacher. Graduated from the faculty of painting and graphic art of the Alexander Herzen Pedagogical University in Leningrad (1968). Studied Impressionism, Cézanneism, Cubism and the cup-cupola system under Vladimir Sterligov (1963-73). Developed Vladimir Sterligov's method of teaching form and colour (1976-78) Began teaching independently (1986). Founded the Form + Colour group (1995). Lives and works in St Petersburg,