Black Square Split by a Cross

Prompted by the growing interest in his works in the early 1970s and the requests of Russian and foreign scholars and publishers, Khidekel started to systematically photograph his archive and to established a clear chronology for his practice, grouping his works according to themes and periods. He identified the subjects of his abstractions and created a special file for his Suprematist works – works that he regarded as his unique contribution to the plastic development of painterly Suprematism. He began to dream about a show of his work, and, indeed, among his 1970s manuscripts is one bearing the title “Toward My Exhibition” that still serves as a guide for presentations that he was unable to realize during his lifetime.

Closely following his recommendations, inclusive exhibitions of his work were eventually organized. One exceptional example was “Surviving Suprematism: Lazar Khidekel,” which marked the hundredth anniversary of artist’s birth. According to the curator of the show, Alla Efimova, “The grouping of early and late works, the juxtapositions of sketches and finished architectural forms reveal a remarkable consistency in Khidekel’s vision during the span of his career. The exhibition demonstrates, surprisingly, how his official Soviet architectural commissions were haunted by the spirit of radical avant-garde experimentation.” The show, Efimova continued, will “uncover a unique case of perseverance and survival, a remarkable example of a twentieth-century artist who carries the kernel of radical avant-garde vision through the terror and drudgery of totalitarian cultural history without succumbing to it.”