16 May – 07 September 2008

The exhibition “Malevich and his Influence” presents this outstanding artist through a selection of major works from all phases of his artistic development between 1915, the official birth of Suprematism, and the artist's death twenty years later. It also documents the influence Malevich had during his life-time on his fellow artists and how these integrated Suprematism into their own work while at the same time taking their very own directions.

Furthermore, and for the first time in this particular form, the exhibition traces Malevitch's influence during his life on artists outside the Soviet Union. Malevich made a trip to the West in 1927. It took him to Poland and to Germany, where he visited the Bauhaus in Dessau. It was in Germany that the only solo exhibition of Malevich took place outside the Soviet Union before the Second World War. Because Malevich was called back to the Soviet Union before he could travel on to Paris, his influence quickly came to an end.

The exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein is almost exclusively of works from the 1920s, so that it documents the intensity with which Malevich succeeded in communicating his ideas and imposing them as a substantial contribution towards the creation of a whole new world. These works also testify to the particular mood of a new departure which characterises that decade. Also on show, in addition to famous Malevich paintings like the Black Square, will be works by Gustav Klucis, El Lissitzky, Liubov Popova, Alexander Rodtchenko and Warwara Stepanova. A large number of these works are on loan from Russian museums and many of them are being shown in western Europe for the very first time.

The exhibition is produced by the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein and curated by Friedemann Malsch. It has been generously supported by the VP Bank AG, Vaduz. Subsequently, the exhibition is shown at the "Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden", Germany.