Kazimir Malevich

This book provides a historical and theoretical framework to the interpretative possibilities generated by Malevich's Black Square. Focusing on the transformations of this work from an easel painting to a Unovis revolutionary icon, and to a signature in Malevich's late paintings, the author argues that from the moment of its conception as the "first" Suprematist painting, the Black Square resisted being read as producing any single meaning. This resulted in the painting's repeated reinterpretation--by the artist himself, by his students, and later by art historians--in an effort to maintain its position of political and aesthetic relevance under shifting historical circumstances. -- Summary supplied by the author.