White on White

Kazimir Malevich, 1918

“Swim in the white free abyss, infinity is before you.” That’s Kazimir Malevich. This is one of his white paintings. A white square on a white square. Which sounds like nothing. So, look closer. The background’s warm, almost cream. The square’s cool, almost gray. Tipped a little. A few years before, he paints a black square on white. He calls it Suprematism. Basically, a painting doesn’t have to show anything anymore. Shapes and colors alone can make you feel something. Then he goes further. Even the black goes. Okay, so, quick history lesson. After the Russian Revolution, the new government hands guys like Malevich their own art schools. Ten years later, Stalin’s taking over. And they want paintings everybody can, ya know… understand. So… Malevich takes about seventy works to a show in Berlin. A month in, he gets called back home. And he figures he’s in trouble. He even writes a will, in case he ends up dead, or in prison. And he leaves the paintings with an architect friend. He never sees them again. Three years later, the man who painted nothing gets arrested. Questioned about that trip. Let go. And this one? The architect passes them to a museum man. When the Nazis come in, he puts them in storage. So this “free abyss” is now sitting in the dark. Then this guy Alfred Barr, from the brand-new Museum of Modern Art, comes through and buys two. This one included. He sneaks them over the border. In a suitcase, and a couple of canvases rolled up inside his umbrella. Was this one in the umbrella? Nobody knows. But the painting gets out. That same year, Malevich dies. His friends drive his coffin down the main street on an open truck. And on the front of the truck… a black square.

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