Square and Space. From Malevich to GES-2

A catalogue and collection of texts to accompany an exhibition dedicated to the art of the twentieth century.

The Square and Space. From Malevich to GES-2 catalogue and reader were published to coincide with a large-scale exhibition of the same name held at GES-2 from June 20 to October 27 2024. In these publications, the curators of the Square and Space project, Francesco Bonami and Zelfira Tregulova, reflect on the influence Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square, which proclaimed the end of the art of the past, had on the foundational artistic concepts of the twentieth century. The inevident parallels and interrelations reflected in the exhibition allow viewers to appreciate the role played by the legacy of the Wanderers on the appearance of the Russian avant-garde and how Suprematism formed the phenomenon of contemporary art as we know it today.

It was out of its own contradictions that, formally and theoretically, the Black Square found its place in the history of art. It is and it will be out of its own contradictions that GES-2’s architecture will find its place in the history of architecture…Square and Space is a little bit the tale of the waves with their highs and lows, through which the Black Square has survived and through which culture in general will survive. Because it is not the weight of art that makes it go through history but its lightness. Because it is not the weight of people’s fear that makes them go through life but the lightness of their dreams and of their fantasies.

—Francesco Bonami, From Malevich to QR-code.

Just as a dialogue between the most important figures and trends of twentieth-century world art was formed in the exhibition space, the Square and Space publications combine the artistic works featured at the exhibition with manifestos, notes, artists’ quotations, and articles by art historians, critics, and theorists from different countries and generations.

For some, this exhibition will widen and deepen their understanding of this most important of periods, for others, it will be an initiation, a introduction to the essence of contemporary artistic processes: despite the differences from classical approaches, they are concentrated on those same eternal questions and themes that preoccupy any true creator, however radical they may seem at first glance.

—Zelfira Tregulova, “Space and Square. An exhibition on the art of the twentieth century at GES-2.”

The texts in the catalogue and readers were selected by editors Dmitry Belkin, Tatyana Goryacheva, Irina Gorlova, Zelfira Tregulova, and Serfey Fofanov.