Transforming a View of Kazimir Malevich’s Deathbed from a Famous Photograph into a Painting

James Sheehan’s “Death of Malevich”
(Credit: drawingcenter.org)

New York artist James Sheehan’s “Death of Malevich (2013),” a postage stamp-sized watercolor based on the famous 1935 photograph of Malevich on his deathbed, has recently been installed at New York’s The Drawing Center. As The Drawing Center’s website states, “To activate The Drawing Center’s newly designed galleries, the institution’s curators have invited artists to create long-term drawing-based installations in atypical locations around the facility.” Sheehan’s “Death of Malevich” is the first of these projects and “is inserted directly into one of the walls of the basement corridor, creating a keyhole effect that voyeuristically transports the viewer into another realm.” “Death of Malevich” will be available for viewing until October 31, 2015.

9/11 deeply affected the work of ultraminiaturist James Sheehan and “Death of Malevich” shines as a clear example of how while loss and grief is universal between everyone, each of our interpretations and experiences vary slightly.

Close-up of “Death of Malevich”
(Credit: drawingcenter.org)

9/11 deeply affected the work of ultraminiaturist James Sheehan and “Death of Malevich” shines as a clear example of how, while loss and grief is universal between everyone, each of our interpretations and experiences vary slightly. The grief associated with overcoming the losses we experience goes through many stages and Sheehan’s use of distance and scale demonstrates how these stages — and our experiences going through them — can easily go from moments of clarity to ones that feel like you are in a fog.

As the Center describes the watercolor’s effect on its viewers, “the relationship between distance and scale results in a scene that appears legible from afar, but that gradually dissolves on approach.”

Sheehan’s inspiration for “Death of Malevich” stems from a classic photograph of the Russian visual absolutist and founding Suprematist painter, Kazimir Malevich, lying on his deathbed surrounded by all of his paintings with one of his most famous, ”Black Square,” hanging directly above. As the Center describes the watercolor’s effect on its viewers, “the relationship between distance and scale results in a scene that appears legible from afar, but that gradually dissolves on approach.” While Malevich’s work focused on geometric abstract art, Sheehan’s work tends to not appear on any scales that are bigger than two inches across all types of dimensions. In a sense, the miniature watercolor, “Death of Malevich,” captures those uncertainties we think and feel about the future without the loved ones we lost through its clever use of distance and scale.

Inspiration for “Death of Malevich”
(Credit: thecharnelhouse.org)

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