Page 273 - Uros Todorovic Byzantine Painting Contemporary Eyes

Chapter V
In the above citation, Ziogas refers to the fact that, although Polish by birth, having a Russian heritage as a cultural and aesthetic habitat in which he grew up, Malevich took into consideration the traditional placement of the icon of the Virgin and Child in Rus- sian private dwellings, placement against the very corner of the room, and in December of 1915, at the exhibition 0.10 – The Last Exhibition of Futurist Painting, positioned his Black Square also in the very corner of the room (image 27). In our view, by doing that, Malevich ascribed to the Black Square a hierophantic kind of spatial dominance.
Ziogas observes that at the same exhibition, Malevich, “by placing the paintings away from one another, and by excluding their frames, attributed to them a more intense, in- ternal kind of cohesion. This cohesion stemmed from the formal relationship of the painted surfaces, the absence of frames, and the distances which separate the painted surfaces.”52
In effect, at the exhibition 0.10 – The Last Exhibition of Futurist Painting, Malevich carefully negotiated the distances between the abstract canvases, and therein treated the walls of the exhibiting space as a surface of his own work. Together with the hung can- vases, the wall-surface contributed to a specific kind of ambience (image 27). Thus, at this exhibition, the actual exhibiting space itself became an integral part of Malevich’s work. To some extent, this could be creatively compared to the way the concave, flat, and oth- er characteristic surfaces of the Byzantine church-interior constitute significant aesthet- ic aspects when Byzantine frescoes are observed in situ. The Byzantine church is regard- ed as a microcosm that mimics the Kingdom of God, while Malevich’s exhibition aspired in its own way to transfigure human existence. As shown in image 27, together with the wall-surfaces, Malevich’s works exhibited in 0.10 – The Last Exhibition of Futurist Paint- ing collectively open towards us as a single and undivided space. In other words, these canvases, though exhibited as separate abstract compositions, are consumed in their unified view of infinity. In this respect, this exhibition can also be regarded as an early example of installation art.
Ziogas concludes his book insightfully by referring to Black Square and stating that “it will function as an object, within a new visual reality without reflections, and it will be a compass which will show us the technique with which we will be able to break each time the endless visual sequence of silken surfaces that surround us, and distinguish
52 Our translation of: «με το να ξεχωρίζει τους πίνακές του και να τους αφαιρεί τις κορνίζες, τους προσέδωσε μια εντονότερη, εσωτερική, πλέον, συνεκτικότητα. Αυτή η συνεκτικότητα προέκυπτε από τη μορφική συγγένεια των επι- φανειών, την ανυπαρξία κορνιζών και από τα διαστήματα που διαχωρίζουν τις ζωγραφικές επιφάνειες μεταξύ τους.» Γιάννης Ζιώγας, Ο Βυζαντινός Μάλεβιτς (Αθήνα: Εκδόσεις Στάχυ, 2000), 39.
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