It’s not just a coincidence that the Whitechapel Gallery announces its landmark abstract art exhibition for 2015. The Tate Modern and Tate Liverpool are currently displaying exhibitions of two major abstract artists – Mondrian and Malevich. Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 – 2015 is evidently following the current trend and the interest of the art world, and perhaps of the art market. The Whitechapel show aims to trace a century of Abstract art from 1915 to today.
A total of 100 years of art history is brought together in the show comprised of 100 works by 80 modern masters and contemporary artists including Carl Andre, David Batchelor, Keith Coventry, Dan Flavin, Andrea Fraser, Gabriel Orozco, Aleksander Rodchenko, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Rosemarie Trockel, as well as Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich.
The exhibition begins where abstract art begun, in 1914 with Kazimir Malevich’s Black and White Suprematist Composition. This is the starting point for telling the story of Abstract art and its political potential over the next century.
Arranged chronologically, the exhibition is divided into four key themes: Communication examines the possibilities of abstraction for mobilising radical change; Architectonics looks at how abstraction can underpin socially transformative spaces; Utopia imagines a new, ideal society, which transcends hierarchy and class and The Everyday follows the way abstract art filters into all aspects of visual culture, from corporate logos to textile design.
Kazimir Malevich, Black and White. Suprematist Composition, 1915
by Fausta Maria Bolettieri
Image courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery, 77 – 82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. Nearest London Underground Station: Aldgate East, Liverpool Street, Tower Gateway DLR. Tel: 44 (0) 20 7522 7888; info@whitechapelgallery.org
Opening times: Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm; Thursdays, 11am – 9pm.
Admission £10.95/£8.95 concs (including Gift Aid donation) £9.95/£7.95 concs (without Gift Aid).