ART CITIES: Istanbul -White Screen Black Hole

“0,10. The Last Futurist Exhibition of Painting” was presented by the Dobychina Art Bureau at Marsovo Pole, Petrograd, from 19/12/1915-17/1/1916. The exhibition inaugurated a form of non-objective art called Suprematism, introducing a daring visual vernacular composed of geometric forms of varying colour. This sort of geometric abstraction was distinct in the apparent kinetic motion and angular shapes of its elements. The presentation of zones of color as forms in themselves created one of the most radical breaking points in the history of art.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Ariel Archive

The number 0.10 refers to a figure of thought: 0, because it was expected that after the destruction of the old world, zero could begin again, and 10, because ten artists were originally scheduled to participate. In fact, there were fourteen artists who had participated in the exhibition: Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, Ivan Puni, Liubov Popova, Ivan Kliun, Ksenia Boguslavskaya, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Nathan Altman, Vasily Kamensky, Vera Pestel, Maria Ivanovna Vasilieva, Anna Michailovna Kirillova and Mikhail Menkov. Kazimir Malevich declared that he had reached the degree zero of all forms and reached out beyond, by hanging his purely abstract and non-objective canvases composed of geometrical forms on the walls. According to Malevich, what he had done was to replace the art of sincerity with the art of truth. Beyond these aesthetical and theoretical discourses, the most sensational work of the exhibition was “Black Square”, made by Malevich for this exhibition, and, unlike his other pictures which were presented in the traditional way hanging on the wall, hung in the corner where walls and the ceiling intersect in the manner of an icon. The first sketches for Black Square had provided space for those who had achieved “Victory over the Sun” on the opera stage two years before, and now the work was announcing it’s own birth as a black sun in one of the halls of the exhibition. Today, on the centenary of this birth and once more in a world of pain, Ayşe Erkmen and the Slovenian artist group IRWIN are tracing the light that was cast into by the Black Square with the exhibition “White Screen Black Hole”. The Turkish artist Ayşe Erkmen participates in the exhibition with circular black canvases of varying size and a 12-minute video of the mutual interaction between hearts and colors. The Slovenian artist group IRWIN participates with the documentary film of their performance “Black Square on the Red Square”, in 6/6/92, with Michael Benson. The 30-minute action consisted of the spreading out of a 22 x 22 square-meter space made of black fabric in the central part of Red Square in Moscow.

Info: Curators: Seda Ateş & Ayşe Orhun Gültekin, Ariel, Macka Caddesi 24, Narmanli Apartmani kat 2 daire 22, Tesvikiye, Istanbul, Duration 15/12/15-23/1/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.arielsanat.com