On 26 November 2020, the Hermitage Days in Samara started in the Samara Regional Art Museum. One of the main events of the programme was the opening of an exhibition of a single masterpiece from the collection of the State Hermitage – Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square.
The Black Square is the artist’s most famous and iconic work. It became a metaphor for radicalism in artistic thinking, when the non-figurative is elevated to the highest degree. Embodying as laconically as possible the idea of “absolute zero”, the beginning and end of all shapes, all phenomena, all worlds, the square in its philosophical aspect remained a not-fully-solved riddle even for its creator.
Alla Shakhmatova, Director of the Samara Regional Art Museum, welcomed the guests of the evening: “This is an exceptionally responsible mission – opening the Hermitage Days in Samara Region! Today you will see a highly unexpected presentation of a museum exhibit that has been made possible by cutting-edge technologies.”
The importance of the event was also stressed by Boris Illarionov, Minister of Culture for Samara Region: “Today we have a historic event. I say that without risk of false hyperbole. Firstly, we are for the first time opening Hermitage Days in Samara Region and, together with that, the exhibition of Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square. Everyone knows full well that this is one of the most famous works of 20th-century art, a unique museum exhibit. Of course, the plan was to hold the Hermitage Days a little earlier and in a slightly different format but circumstances we all know about have interfered. This is just the start of long story that will undoubtedly last for many a year: we are already thinking about the programme for the next Hermitage Days. I invite all the inhabitants of our region to join in the Hermitage Days in Samara that will be taking part in both ‘physical presence format’ and online. I welcome you all on behalf of the government of Samara Region and bring greetings from the Governor, Dmitry Igorevich Azarov.”
Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, addressed the guests from a TV screen: “I am very pleased to be opening the Hermitage Days in Samara Region, albeit in a slightly truncated form. Today the Hermitage is fulfilling the obligations that we took upon us last year. I am grateful to Dmitry Igorevich Azarov for serving as head of the working group on culture in the State Council. We are already feeling the positive results of his efforts across the whole country. During these days, you will be seeing one of the 20th century’s main paintings – Malevich’s Black Square. It is a very important piece, that ought indeed to have an exhibition of a single painting, because it needs to be viewed intently and for a very long time. People can say as much as they want that it is something incomprehensible, but that is relevant only for those who want to see comprehensible things… This is an example of how an artist can speak to people without distracting them with figurative images, make them think, issue a challenge of sorts to us, the viewers. You can spend hours contemplating all the thoughts and concepts that its creator tried to embody here. We agreed to bring the painting to Samara, because it was from your city that it came into our collection. I hope that the Black Square will do well in Samara and that you, as you look at it, will penetrate not only into the pessimistic depths of the artist’s concept, but also remember that the name of your city comes from the name of one in Iraq that can be translated as ‘he who sees it delights’.”
To present the painting, Dmitry and Maria Khramov have devised a special art project under the title An Audience. Dmitry thanked the organizers of the exhibition and explained their thinking: “Our concept is called An Audience and expresses itself in the treatment of space – a Suprematist wedge that as it narrows brings people towards a one-to-one encounter with the Black Square. When the viewers leave, the shadows of the following visitors peel off, as it were, from black non-existence, passing a play of quotations from Malevich on the wall. I would be very pleased if all the viewers appreciate our idea and enter into a dialogue with the painting.”
The exhibition of the Black Square runs until 20 December 2020.
The Culture Ministry of Samara Region together with the Samara Regional Art Museum have prepared a programme to be implemented in various (online and offline) formats. The “Hermitage Cinema” will be operating daily from 26 November to 20 December. Everyone who wishes will be able to see Hermitage Online documentary films and other programmes. These films make it possible to visit the restoration laboratories, to find out about the work of researchers and curators, to learn how the museum functioned during quarantine, to view works of art and join online guided tours of the State Hermitage. The themes of the screenings are The Hermitage, The Greater Hermitage, the Life of the Hermitage and the Hermitage’s Restorers, The Curator Tells, Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries and Western Art.
People can “go to the cinema” on the premises of the Samara Regional Art Museum or online through the museum’s website.
On 28 and 29 November, at 4 pm local time, Lilia Albertovna Galimova from the State Hermitage’s Department for Scientific and Educational Work will give lectures entitled “Malevich. The Path to the Square” and “Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin. Post-Impressionism’.
