The Fourth 'Book of Schemes'. Album #2, the First Folder 1978

Curator: This is "The Fourth 'Book of Schemes'. Album #2, the First Folder" by Valerii Lamakh, created in 1978. It’s a work in acrylic paint, characterized by geometric abstraction. Editor: My first thought? It feels like a bizarre Christmas card that's had an existential crisis. Simple squares of red and green at first glance, then they start playing tricks on the eyes. It's hypnotic, almost… or maybe I just need more coffee. Curator: It's interesting that you mention 'tricks'. Conceptual art often aims to disrupt expectations. Lamakh was part of the Soviet Nonconformist Art movement, which directly challenged the prevailing Socialist Realism. These geometric patterns can be seen as coded systems, perhaps alluding to restricted modes of communication or hidden meanings within a highly controlled society. Editor: Coded systems… hidden meanings… Hmm. My immediate read was just that the dude liked squares! The raw application of paint, though… the way the colors vibrate against each other… it *almost* feels aggressive. But then there's the black square toward the end. What’s up with that? Curator: The black square undoubtedly evokes Malevich, but here, it may signal a kind of endpoint or a turning point in the ‘scheme.’ Note how the other blocks transition through different layers of geometric composition before the black emerges. How do we read the whiteness also represented in one square? Editor: Good point. The composition with the white square with thin dark gray lines does looks like a ghostly frame to the other squares. It's like something faded or a lost memory—in opposition to the stark intensity of blackness in the adjacent square. Curator: These shifting planes in the sequence can suggest a breakdown of the imposed systems. This echoes similar themes from within Soviet Nonconformist Art where abstraction became a subtle, subversive form of visual resistance. Editor: So, it’s not just a psychedelic Christmas card gone wrong! It's resistance. I like it even more now. Gives the colours a sharper edge, somehow. The imperfect brushstrokes take on new resonance. Curator: Precisely. Considering the context, the materiality combined with visual symbolism adds another dimension, where simplicity belies a complex interrogation of power and freedom. Editor: I'll never look at a square the same way again. Curator: Nor I! Let's move on to the next work.