Crackle black square on faded red flag, 2014
Photograph
Pigmented inks on photographic paper.
80 x 131 cm.
Edition of 3 + 2 P. A.
This photograph presents the Black Square, created by Malevich in 1915, superimposed on a communist flag that flew on the balcony of the Soviet Consulate in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. The dimensions of the square that appears in the photograph coincide with those of Malevich’s original painting, the interpretation of this work has been made from an anarchist perspective (1).
As can be seen in the photograph, there is a significant loss of the red color in the flag and a cracked or cracked paint in the black square. These chromatic deficiencies and material deterioration somehow come to symbolize the failure of the implementation of communism and anarchism, as well as their lack of synergy (2). The fusion of both ideologies seeks to create a new “atopic” ensign that incorporates, beyond idealism, fragility, imperfection, anomaly and defect.
(1) Theorists like Boris Groys or John E. Bowlt have interpreted Malevich’s Black Square from anarchist ideology.
(2) Throughout the First International, the Russian Revolution or the Spanish Civil War, among other events, communism and anarchism manifested themselves as two irreconcilable ideologies.