From the space 1917

Editor: Here we have Kazimir Malevich’s 1917 drawing, "From the Space," a graphite on paper work. It strikes me as so sparse and cryptic. I am mesmerized by how he manages to do so much with a few lines and shapes. What do you make of it? Curator: Well, it reminds me a bit of looking up at the night sky as a child, trying to connect the dots of the constellations to create meaning from randomness. This drawing, a slice of Malevich’s suprematism, is his personal constellation of shapes, floating freely. I wonder, are they liberating themselves from earthly constraints? Are they trying to suggest pure feeling, raw sensation, even, devoid of the representational baggage art had accumulated? Editor: Pure feeling...I didn't think of it that way. The simple shapes seem almost cold and mechanical at first glance, but perhaps they are building blocks of something more, emotions in their most basic form. But what do you mean "liberating from earthly contraints"? Curator: Precisely. Consider the title. "From the Space." He paints it as being ‘out there’. It speaks of defying gravity, of accessing the ethereal plane, unburdening one's self, casting off earthly limitations. They reject what art should or could represent and rather capture the essence of abstraction by distilling art to its fundamental components, lines, circles, triangles, and the like. They seem to evoke sensations and even a sense of longing. Is it weird to say it evokes music too? Editor: No, not at all. It is interesting how reducing forms unlocks something unexpected and intangible. Curator: It seems paradoxically freeing that abstraction, paring down to geometric shapes, evokes emotion that figurative art fails to evoke. Editor: I’m going to have to look at abstraction in a new light after this.