The Last Futurist Exhibition of Painting “0,10” (Zero-Ten) opened in Petrograd, Russian Empire and ran from December 1915 to January 1916. It is considered by many, like Matthew Drutt, to be one of the ‘modernism’s legendary exhibitions’. This historic exhibition was a stage where two titans of the Russian avant-garde, Vladimir Tatlin and Kazimir Malevich, carved their ways into the realm of abstract art. For both artists this exhibition was a manifesto and a showcasing of their novel ideas and achievements. This essay explores the complex nature of the Russian avant-garde through the prism of the Last Futurist Exhibition of Painting “0,10” (Zero-Ten).

 

Firstly, the essay explores both artists’ works and discusses the differing ways that each artist used and expressed space and ideas behind their creative decisions. Secondly, it discusses the implications of the use of space in the display methods of Malevich and Tatlin. The essay argues that as both artists tended towards non-objectivity their avant-garde ideas came about primarily through novel approaches to space which they both explored within the work and in the context of display. Different methods brought artists to different spaces. Tatlin achieved space earthly real space through three-dimensional industrial materials, while Malevich achieved conceptual space of cosmic dimensions on a two-dimensional surface.