ZAHA HADID HAS CURATED AND DESIGNED AN EXHIBITION AT GALERIE GMURZYNSKA ZURICH – THE FIRST EXHIBITION THAT DIRECTLY EXPLORES THE CONNECTION BETWEEN HER WORK AND THE RUSSIAN SUPREMATISM ARTISTS OF THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
TEXT: KARJVIT RIRERMVANICH
PHOTO: MARTIN RUESTCHI
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With the distinctive style and identity in her architectural creations, Zaha Hadid’s name isn’t just a household name in the design community, and her works aren’t published in just architectural magazines anymore. The works created under her brand are highly in demand, mainly for the cultural identity and publicity Hadid brings about in the buildings she designs and their owners, the individuals, organizations and cities around the world. Today Hadid has crossed over the doubts people once had for her works, and has entered the new realm of possibility in the world. All these reasons are enough for Hadid to be considered as one of the 25 world’s most influential thinkers in TIME 100 held by TIME Magazine this year, standing side by side with people like Steve Jobs and Lee Kuan Yew.
The blatant difference of her works often divides the conversation regarding Hadid’s architecture into two sides, the pro-Hadid’s and the opposition. One of the main reasons brought up by the people who reject her work is the disagreement with the way she creates a form without any rationality or reason to support it, or how very often the works are too flashy and complex.
The exhibition Zaha Hadid and Suprematism held last summer at Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich, Switzerland is probably another way that can help us understand and learn more about the ideas behind Hadid’s works before making any judgment. The exhibition has Hadid herself as the curator and designer, and it takes us to really look at all the key influences of her ideas. Hadid installs her models, drawing, perspective images including furniture design projects in comparison with the 2-dimensional abstract art by the group Suprematism led by Kazimir Malevich. Suprematism is an avant-garde artist group from Russia back in 1920s that initiated significant movement for the art scene of that time through abstract art. Their work has become an important influence for Hadid ever since her graduation project from The Architectural Association (AA) in 1977. In her project, called Malevich’s Tektonik, Hadid used deconstruction perspective created by the artistic compositions in Malevich’s 2-dimensional works as the initiation of her design process for a hotel building in London.
One of the distinctive features of the exhibition is the way the space in the gallery is changed entirely. It appears that Hadid borrows the composition of a black circle on white background in Malevich’s renowned work ‘Black Circle’ to create the change on the ground floor of the 2 normal shop-house buildings of Galerie Gmurzynska. Hadid turns the space into something with her own signature, by creating 3-dimensional element out of the existing 2-dimensional compositions. The black circle explodes and disperses itself on the back of the exhibition space, on the floor, ceiling, and the white wall where suprematism’s works are installed. The works and the back circle seem to share one similar element: different geometric forms floating on the empty space, freed forms floating on the empty space, freed from any rules or even gravity. The composition of abstractness is the core content, and it doesn’t need any explanation or reason, which seems to be the approach taken by the two creators. What we can feel surely is the dynamic of the forms and composition in both Hadid’s and Malevich’s works, especially Hadid’s sculptural pieces, Which are all in the right scale with the exhibition space. The unexplainable feeling is somehow very impressive, and it doesn’t need any further reason or rationality.
The similarity between the Hadid’s and Malevich’s works we have learnt in addition to the abstractness and the emphasis on the primary ideas concerning the artistic composition of an empty space, is the achievement in being more than just a particular style of a certain era. Both Hadid and Malevich cross over and define the change of artistic culture and era. Their names are marked in the history, which will be a part of the progress that will keep the world moving. It’s no different from the achievement of other thinkers, those who believe in the idea of minimalism; those who are true and honest to the program, all these great notions and beliefs are originated from the same thing — the denying of rules that were made and followed, and the courage to create new things using new processes and possibilities.
Originally published in art4d No.177, December-January 2011
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It’s not just for art or architecture, this belief is the thing that will create every change in this world of ours.