Malevich FLY at Igor Burganov Academy of Arts, Moscow

Malevich FLY gathers a series of homages to one of the most influential painters of the twentieth century. The works cite Suprematist and post-Suprematist paintings and set them in a contemporary art context, so the old forms are read again through present-day eyes.

The starting point is Kazimir Malevich, the Russian avant-garde artist and art theorist who pioneered abstract painting. He introduced Suprematism in 1915, a system of pure geometric abstraction on monochromatic grounds. His Black Square, first shown at the Last Futurist Exhibition 0,10 in Petrograd that same year, marked a decisive break with representational painting. A century on, that single dark shape on a pale field remains a reference point that painters keep returning to.

Here, three painters answer it in their own hands: Alexander Tolstikov, Natalia Shushanyan and Ivan Lobov. Each works in dialogue with Malevich, quoting his Suprematist and post-Suprematist paintings and placing those citations beside contemporary practice. The show is built as a conversation across time rather than a retrospective, and the visitor is invited to spot the source and judge how far the new canvas departs from it.

The Igor Burganov Academy of Arts, a school as well as a gallery space, is a fitting host for a project about influence and inheritance. For anyone who knows the Suprematist squares, crosses and floating planes, the pleasure lies in recognition. For those who do not, the exhibition offers a clear way in: a contemporary painter’s reply to a work that changed what a painting could be.