Hommage to Malevich's Black Square

Malevichs Black Square is perhaps the most iconic of modern paintings and in my mind and unthinkable without Russian iconographic painting. It is a zero point in Malevichs own words, the point or nothing which is not nothing but where everything is possible. It is a deeply spiritual painting to me.

The first Black Square appears in 1915. At the Suprematist Exhibition the Black Square is placed diagonally to the corner, opening it. Already then, the Black Square does not want to be square and moves towards the infinite, it is in my mind the most cosmic painting of Modernity. To me it reaches for the universe, it is the universe.

This little book then is an hommage to Malevichs Black Square, it is a series of written and painted reflections on the endless potential and joy of this great painting close to my heart.



Gabrielle von Bernstorff-Nahat is an architect, painter and poet. Among her most recent publications are the Nature Works Series as well as The Sound of Herats in Blue and Mary A Rhapsody in Blue. For more on her oeuvres go to www.gevebe.com