Prologue: Suprematism

Week of September 7, 2008

In his advocating Suprematism as the only art, communism as a new form of government, and even the stream of consciousness writing style as a new way of thought, El Lissitzky seems desperate to not only find a new world for art but also seeks for a fundamental change in the way we live. In his writings he expresses a desperate desire for a severe and complete disassociation with the world of the past and to start anew. Yet near the end of his “Suprematism in World Reconstruction, 1920”, he writes that the way to this new world is to free the people from the “shackles” which bound them, thereby allowing them to discover that which has been suppressed. Does he think then the way to a new world is through rediscovery of a lost self?
I see no contradiction in the sentiment of creating something new by using buried potential, but El Lissitzky’s words suggest a much greater revolution, a more complete and disorienting break with the past. The Renaissance was a rediscovery of lost knowledge, but El Lissitzky considers those ideals untrue and insincere. His revolutionary words seem to suggest a greater solution than that which he offers at the end, because what he offers is an old idea. The idea of human potential and its possibilities is not new, and neither are the ideas of progress, of evolution, and even of revolution. The Suprematists, the Cubists, and the Futurists all seek new forms in order to create a new world, but according to the Suprematists, the other two cannot succeed because they are still bound by conventions. I see the Suprematists as also being bound by the limitations of this world. No matter how much El Lissitzky may attempt to modify his writing and grammar, how will anyone else but he understand his writings if he truly creates a hitherto unknown writing? In order to communicate ideas to others, we have to use known conventions. We often understand through analogy and comparison, so any new knowledge will necessarily be based on past knowledge.
Can El Lissitzky’s ideas be valid even if he communicates them by a method of the past? I cannot fully accept his ideas while these problems exist; I can only try to understand it by what I know, which I am certain will not be fully what El Lissitzky is trying to convey. If each individual is truly the product of his or her times, and there are no absolute rights or wrongs, then I believe that El Lissitzky’s absolutes and often intolerance for other ideas are results of the turmoil and uncertainty of his times, and that I can never truly agree with his ideas.