The Theory of Suprematism and the Event: The Search for the Possibility of Transformation

This article proposes to revise the established research approach to Suprematism as a utopian futuristic project. The conceptual analysis of the texts created by K. Malevich (1879–1935) in the period from 1915 to 1922 and devoted to pointlessness has shown that the theory of Suprematism can be viewed as a kind of synthesis of ideas of the fourth dimension (Ch. H. Hinton) and the evolution of human consciousness (P. Ouspensky). It makes it possible to regard the principles of the theory of suprematism through the prism of the concept of the Event. Though the term itself was never used by K. Malevich, the idea of a new way of seeing and a flash of the reason that leads to the possibility of subjective transformation are in line with the meaning of the Event, as seen in philosophical and esoteric thought. The article puts forward the thesis according to which K. Malevich was exposed to these ideas in the atmosphere of spiritual quests of the 1910s and early 1920s. K. Malevich, M. Matyushin, and A. Kruchenykh took part in the production of the opera Victory over the Sun which served as a venue of creative interaction and an outlet for creative approaches and conceptual reinterpretation. Here one can clearly see the logical isomorphism of the artistic practice of the opera creators, based on a specific interpretation of time and the idea of the evolution of consciousness, and those ideas that underlay the esotericism of their time. Another indirect argument in favor of the thesis about the presumed parallelism of the theory of K. Malevich and the concept of the Event is the performative nature of the texts written by the author of the Black Square. According to K. Malevich, through overcoming meaning as the victory over reason and objectivity, the gap between the modus of postulating the possibility of transformation and the real experience of the sense of immortality. This also points to the similarity of his ideas and the esoteric project of irrational cognition and control over the mysterious. Thus, Suprematism can be interpreted as the Event of subjective transformation, and the theory of Suprematism can be viewed as a tool that allows one to experience a sense of immortality, accessible to both the creator and the viewer, who develop the creative will for the future.