Suprematism, Thirty-Four Drawings

An art book by Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism, Thirty-Four Drawings

Kazimir Malevich's 1920 work titled "Suprematism, Thirty-Four Drawings" has joined the Arketon books, translated and designed by Aykut Köksal. The book, which is among the artist's fundamental works that systematize his Suprematist thought, contains 34 drawings after a brief introductory text and represents the period when Suprematism expanded theoretically and formally towards architecture and spatial thinking. Malevich's effort to present Suprematism as a universal aesthetic and cosmic system of thought becomes evident in this book, following his 1915 "Black Square." The book illustrates the basic forms of the movement (square, circle, cross, line), composition principles, and the relationship between color, form, and movement through drawings. These drawings are documents of the universe in which Malevich moved from painting to volumetric Suprematism and architectural models. In this book, the artist aims to prove that Suprematism is not just a painting movement, but an attempt to create a new space and world. In short, this work reveals that in Malevich's thought, theory and form are inseparable, and that Suprematism stands at a threshold where Renaissance perspective ended and the perception of space radically changed.

In the introductory text of the book, Malevich states: "In this small book containing my works on Suprematism, a small number of constructions were printed in colors ranging from black to gray. Suprematism is divided into three periods according to the number of black, red, and white squares: Black, colored, and white periods. In the last period, white forms were applied on white. The three periods of development lasted from 1913 to 1918. The constructive development of the periods took place entirely on the plane. Underlying them was the economic principle of transferring static power or dynamic stillness on a single plane. If until now, all forms have expressed this sense of touch, through countless interrelationships between connected forms - through various relationships in the organism formed by the forms - this is because they have been achieved through economic geometrism on the plane or in volume. If all forms appear as an expression of a completely utilitarian perfection, the Suprematist form is nothing but an indicator of the perceived power of action and the utilitarian perfection of the concrete world. Form only shows the dynamism of the situation and is an indicator of the path an airplane should follow in space."

Kazimir Malevich's book "Suprematism, Thirty-Four Drawings" was published in a limited edition, in the same dimensions as the 1920 edition, and all copies were numbered.