Lecture: Kazimir Malevich—Materials and Meaning in Suprematism

In 1915, Kazimir Malevich debuted the painting Painterly Realism of a Football Player—Color Masses in the Fourth Dimension. By moving away from the depiction of the visible world and focusing instead on the relationships between colored geometric forms against a textured white background, Malevich challenged artistic conventions.

Maria Kokkori, associate scientist for scholarly initiatives, discusses this landmark work and its making, its journey to the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011, and how it expands our understanding of Russian modernism.