Black Square Space (By Tom R. Chambers)

​

​

I am utilizing images of the Universe (courtesy of HubbleSite [ http://hubblesite.org]) in combination with Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" to confirm his (Malevich) interest in Astronomy and connection of his Suprematist work with the Universe. The "Space" images have been pixelated to show abstractions - configurations of pixels - running throughout the "Black Square" and beyond ("white abyss"). Malevich's "Black Square" becomes monolithic. He called himself, "President of s(S)pace".

According to Malevich, the "white abyss" of the background, whose whiteness was conditioned by the extreme incandescence of energetic tension in the Universe, was the manifestation of s(S)pace on Suprematist canvases. He called this process "dissolution", a term with Cosmic connotations: "The Cosmos is dissolution. The Earth is a small splitting."

​

​

In Malevich's everyday life, his proclamation of the inevitable break from Earth and mastery of space turned into a passionate immersion in Astronomy. During his Vitebsk years (1919-22), he was never parted from his pocket telescope, constantly observing and studying the starry sky. His text, "Suprematism:34Drawings",publishedonDecember15,1920 prophesizedtheintroductionabout humanity's Cosmic future. It was here that he gave the ordinary word "sputnik" - Russian for companion or fellow traveler - the meaning that made it famous. . ("The Cosmos and the Canvas", Aleksandra Shatskikh)

In his text, Malevich lays out his ideas: "The Suprematist machine, if it can be put that way, will be single-purposed and have no attachments. A bar alloyed with all the elements, like the Earthly sphere, will bear the life of perfections, so that each constructed Suprematist body will be included in Nature's natural organization and will form a new sputnik; it is merely a matter of finding the relationship between the two bodies racing in s(S)pace. A new sputnik can be built between Earth and Moon, a Suprematist sputnik equipped with all the elements that moves in an orbit, forming its own new path."