by Paweł Mościcki, Polish Academy of Sciences.

When Kazimir Malevich painted Suprematist Composition: White on White in 1918, it would seem that painting had reached an impassable limit. Yet one can look at this canvas as a starting point, the opening of a long and multifaceted history. Malevich was certainly not the creator of the only or the last “white on white” image. Throughout the 20th century, until today, there have been successive versions of images executed in a similarly limited frame. This fact alone creates a vision of an extremely interesting and diverse archive of artworks. The lecture will try to present an alternative theoretical framework of understanding this heterogeneous set of artworks. Paweł Mościcki will treat “white on white” as a celebration of minimal differences, a multiplicity composed of subtle distinctions and multiplied tones. Thus, the opposite of monochromes, which they most commonly pass for. Since these images complicate both perception (which must see two in one) and reflection (because it must reconcile one name with two points of reference) they will be a great pretext to discuss what is the nature of the color and what color it actually is. This lecture is part of the ongoing research on the archeology of what Mościcki call “minimal phantasy”.

MODERNITAS opens the new semester with a lecture by Prof. Paweł Mościcki who will focus on Kazimir Malevich and his Suprematism in the context of some other 20th century paintings working with the colour white, with a specific emphasis on their perception.

Paweł Mościcki – philosopher, essaist, writer; professor at the Institute of Literary Research in Warsaw (Polish Academy of Science). He is the editor of the online academic journal "View. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture". The author of the following books: Politics of Theater. Essays on Engaging Art (2008), Godard. Arcades Project (2010), The Idea of Potentiality. The Possibility of Philosophy According to Giorgio Agamben (2013), We Also Have Our Past. Guy Debord and History as a Battlefield (2015), Photo-constellations. On Marek Piasecki (2016), Snapshots from the Tradition of the Oppressed(2017), Chaplin. The Prevision of the Present (2017), Lessons of Football (2019), Asylum (2022). In 2016, he created an online Refugee Atlas (now under reconstruction) inspired by Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne.

Thursday 7th September from 10am to 11am
Maison des Sciences Humaines Reception Room
Bâtiment DE1 Niveau 3
Salle R.3.105. Av. Antoine Depage 1
1000 Bruxelles

This event will be taken in place in English.

Free entrance.
Contact: Petra James