Modernism/modernity

Abstract:

Kazimierz Malewicz's 1919 treatise On New Systems in Art is notoriously difficult to read, not least because its text is heavily redacted and replete with strikeouts. These paratextual details are often interpreted as Suprematist symbols, yet this article traces Malewciz's iconography back to a pervasive part of Russian print culture: censorship.

Emphasizing that censorship was a ubiquitous force in the early twentieth century — one which shaped art even as it suppressed it — this article uses the framework of mimetic resistance to explore how and why Malewicz stylistically imitated an institution he so vocally opposed, identifying an elective affinity which extended even to his most iconic image: the Black Square.