MALEVICH: ON THE SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE IN ART OR ON ART IN GENERAL (1922)

Kasimir Malevich (1927)

It is possible to speak of the subjective or the objective only if, in reality, it is possible ‒ before all is said and done ‒ to reveal the object or the subject. First and foremost, we must define them not in relative terms but in precise ones. If we are unable to define these precise terms, then every effort we make to establish the subjective or the objective point of perception of the object will be futile, it becomes objectless.

As a subject in which I begin and end, which contains those confines that determine my being, it is difficult and even impossible to define my basis or departure point. The same with the object. Of course, we conventionally refer to nature or any phenomenon as being objective (as existing uniformly for everyone, although this objective world of phenomena has been made for the simple, practical, economic condition of our everyday relationships). Objective things come into existence because the difficulty we have in defining a thing excludes it from existing within a mass, collective relationship: hence the initial appearance of the object is a subjective one; this is the basis of its appearance, the subjective condition of my personal discretion.

Consequently, all phenomena which are called something or have purposes, functions, performance are only conditional, because no one function is absolute. Therefore, the world of objectively existing things is a system of conditional signs, functions and relationships. For us all the automobile exists objectively, but it exists only when its purpose is revealed in obvious ways demonstrating all its conditions as it executes the functions and requirements of people. In turn, these requirements must also be demonstrated immediately by reference to their benefit, their use and necessity for the broad mass of people, i.e. they must be shown in a subjective light, their use has to be comprehended and made a social one. Otherwise, the automobile won't exist. In the distant past there existed an objective concept whereby the earth was flat or did not revolve whereas everything in its vicinity or around it did revolve. Now we have a different concept whereby the earth revolves and everything with it. Consequently, the very same object ‒ which existed objectively for all people ‒ proved to be quite unobjective because a new viewpoint revealed that the earth's globe was in a state of movement, and what had been objective evidence for everyone turned out to be unobjective. Now, in our time of culture, in our time of science and scientific analysis, it is impossible to guarantee that the broad mass of people will retain their objective understanding that the earth's globe does not revolve as soon as the sun encircles the earth, or that our scientists will retain their subjective notion that the earth revolves.

If the automobile exists as an objective thing, but only as a conditional thing, then it exists objectively. For me personally, the automobile does not exist, because what is an automobile? This very question undermines its objective foundation. Moreover, I can find supporters of my viewpoint, and my viewpoint can become conditional, objective. From my point of view, the automobile is a complex of many technological elements from our pragmatic life of interrelationships. Or the automobile is a construction of power communications which have generated a number of mutual interconnections which, in turn, have created a system expressing a certain speed of movement of a quite aimless nature but which has subsequently been applied to various, practical, mass requirements. So here we have a whole cycle of elements that have created a phenomenon (by analogy with all the phenomena of the world of flora or other organisms) except that the automobile is a planned, mechanical phenomenon whereas the others are organic. An objective perception of the automobile can be the same as for any unit of the vegetable world. For everyone the birch tree exists objectively, but actually, in factual terms, a birch tree does not exist; the birch tree is but one phenomenon of the vegetable world and has an infinite connection through its individual elements with a whole world of plants. So it is quite impossible to categorize a phenomenon of the vegetable world as a specific unit free from any interactions or connections with other elements. Hence, beyond purely conditional relationships, it is impossible to establish an object as something delimited. And purely conditional relationships can be only conditional. If we do have to concern ourselves with the objective and the subjective, then we can do so only in reference to a conditional object / objectivism and subject / subjectivism, to a specific and maximum assumption, since there can be no absolute assumption. Consequently, things cannot exist absolutely objectively or subjectively. This tenet is amplified by the fact that we also have the sensation of movement wherein an object's delimitation expresses itself in rotation and reveals its new points of contact with me: if the object did not possess two points and were to stand eternally before me on its one edge, then I, in any case, would discover them as I proceeded to contemplate their static basis.

So we have these two arguments (new but relative) concerning the relative precision of movement of objects ‒ movement existing objectively for everyone ‒ and, in turn, the objects themselves existing objectively and relatively. This is also a relative, illusory reflection on the lamina of our consciousness inasmuch as every object possesses a whole range of new objects and units from which it is composed; and its contour ‒ which is delineated as something whole to our eye (the mirror of a single part of our perception of the phenomenon) ‒ can show only one side of its whole since all the objects and elements that constitute it are not reflected in our eye. A microscope or telescope can show our eye objects and phenomena that previously had no objective existence for anyone. Therefore, it is impossible to see an object or thing as a whole in this manner, i.e. as an isolated and indivisible unit. That is why I call my theory of cognition objectless, i.e. it's a way of looking at phenomena whereby my consciousness must renounce any cognition of the object and, the more so, make it objective for all or subjective for myself. I accept one tenet ‒ that if anything exists, then there exist circumstances of interactive apprehension and rejection beyond any form of cognition. Consequently, the world as nature cannot be divided into categories since it is impossible to divide nature into elements, it being an indivisible unit. However, man is divided into two principles: one state is his simple, mechanical effect, the other is his state of reason; consciousness is absent in the former, but present in the latter (which is a judgemental result of the former process). And so there arise many ideas concerning the world. Our wish to judge hastens our rational interpretation of a phenomenon (hence reason) and we attain this or that world view or definition of objects. When reasoned this way, phenomena provide us with many concepts and forms of cognition that are elevated to the subjective or the objective. I can divide these two categories or forms of cognition of phenomena into two more interpretations: by subjective we may understand phenomena that are perceived by the subject but whose perception has not yet been assimilated by a second subject. If we admit the existence of subjective cognition, then this can exist PRIMA FACIE only if the subject has not expressed its point of view concerning the phenomenon. If, however, the subject decides to communicate its perceptions of the phenomenon to a second subject, then its subjective cognition becomes an object for this second. From this point on, this subjective cognition becomes recognizable and hence is deprived of its subjectivity. From my point of view, there is no subjective cognition that cannot become objective because, if we admit the existence of subjective cognition, then this must be a kind of cognition that can never be known by anyone. If we grant this thesis, then it can never become an object and, consequently, cannot become objective.

But if all phenomena can be cognized, then they all exist objectively. So, it's all a case of cognition, of how and what is cognized and communicated. We have cognized that one point moves towards another point. Everyone can see that and, therefore, the movement of a point becomes something objective even though, in essence, this point as such does not exist. There is a sharp difference between seeing and cognition: I can see something and cognize nothing of what I see. I do not know whether this kind of episode is to be called subjective or objective. We all apprehend a phenomenon, but no one can judge what they see. I see an object, but I know it neither subjectively nor objectively. Hence the inference that only those phenomena can be considered objective which we all cognize uniformly whether by hearing, sight or touch. Conversely, we can accept this thesis as a second kind of perception. But we can answer the question only in relative terms, i.e. any form of cognition can be only relative. Therefore, whether a form of cognition is subjective or objective, it will still be relative. And if relativity is removed from this context, then nothing remains either of the subjective or of the objective.

I think, therefore, that there exists just one standpoint, and only a mechanical one, beyond any cognition. Most people will question this standpoint too, i.e. those people for whom nature has become an organic culture and has disintegrated into creative spirit. However, from my point of view an organism is nothing more or less than a series of phenomena processed by the interaction of circumstances, and all the bones, veins and muscles of an organism that seem to us to have been constructed with such rational technology, were, in fact, constructed without that. This is one instance of the two circumstances. The newly created condition can change when confronted with a new one ‒ and then it will be deprived of muscles, veins, blood and bones. Human consciousness, which, for all, has objective existence, changes when confronted by new circumstances, and it can happen that these circumstances will also change during this confrontation. To all intents and purposes, we see and know that circumstances transform consciousness and vice versa. Consciousness is a new element in human existence ‒ an individual element like the subject or the object. It arises only when consciousness arises in the individual. Hence the inference that the subjective thought process is present only in man inasmuch as that which becomes for him an object of cognition or recognition lies outside this thought process. I am not aware of either a subjective or an objective perception of the object being examined. In order for the individual to formulate his subjective cognition, the individual must undertake a reconnaissance expedition and bring back plans, designs and judgements about the object. But I wonder what would happen if the individual went on this expedition and didn't find anything in the object of examination. The object would then simply not exist, and the cognitive individual would vanish. If, however, the individual does manage to penetrate the object and to bring back a large number of facts about it, then, obviously, these facts will not belong to the individual, either to his subjective or to his objective personality. But at this point there arises another thesis: the facts that the individual brings before the public might be disputed by some, but acknowledged by others. So some will say that these facts, as a rationalization about the phenomenon being examined, are subjective, not objective. How come? Obviously, certain people can submit their definition or accusation of subjective rationalization only because they, in turn, have undertaken an expedition into this area and have brought back a different understanding of the phenomenon in question. Hence the dispute between the subjective personality and those people who do not understand the subjective personality.

I don't know whether there exists an individual who would not wish to make his intensely subjective conceptions of the phenomenon objective (otherwise his judgement would remain incomprehensible to us). At the same time, everyone would like to cognize these conceptions, i.e. to turn a subjective idea into something existing objectively. If this could not occur, then the subject would not exist. What happens during this process of mutual aspirations? There takes place an obvious reconstruction of the established, previous cognition of the phenomenon in question since the new subjective analysis has now attained a new standpoint, one that was not known before. Consequently, this standpoint can be accepted only when the previous addendum of the new point has been reconstructed after numerous adjustments.

A certain object is present before us ‒ let's say the earthly globe ‒ with all its phenomena which we can see. Everything else existing in space is only in obscurity. However, man does not possess just one opinion or judgement concerning the object that he sees, and even with the aid of science (i.e. a technical method or approach to the cognition of phenomena) he cannot attain an objective result. But science, perhaps, can cognize nothing ‒ it is occupied only with the unification and disunification of phenomena and applies organized unities and disunities to a so called utilitarian end, to pragmatic ideas. Perhaps the whole of man's activity is composed of this aimless unification and disunification of elements. Whether the latter are necessary or not cannot be resolved concretely. All subjective and objective questions are merely a product of reason aspiring to supply everyone with an objective production. Nothing positive can be predetermined by judgement alone. All man has left is his senses of touch which are divided into many nuances. All the touch perceptions are reflected in reason, i.e. they affect a particular element which then begins to manifest itself as it is judged and endeavors to tell us something about the senses of touch. That is why it is so difficult, impossible to describe the sense of touch just as it is so difficult to create an object.

It is impossible to comprehend an object because everything is the tangible objectlessness of interactions. No one can say what precisely he is aware of because whatever he says (fire, light, darkness, iron, pain) is merely a piece of conditional evidence. If a man cries out from pain, this is just like an electric bell when the current is switched on; this is not pain ‒ the man's cry merely demonstrates the degree to which this or that phenomenon has been switched into a particular set of circumstances. If the natural world groans, cries, whines, gnashes its teeth ‒ this does not mean that it is ill; or, if it is silent, this does not mean that it is well. But, at the same time, sick and healthy people do exist objectively, just as death also exists objectively. Yet, there is no such phenomenon in nature, just as there is no such thing as old-age or youth. In nature there is no consciousness of sight or hearing and no sense of time, and nature does not have subjects and objects either. All these phenomena, conceptualized in our conditional, credulous organism, emerge as means towards an end. Nevertheless, I shall still find it difficult to believe that nature possesses no single object that I can see, feel or hear from start to finish, i.e. exhaust its possibilities, create the object. But this doesn't stop the phenomena and facts of what I see, hear and touch (and, of course, the things themselves that I see, hear and touch) from existing objectively for everyone. This is also conditional since I see a conditional object in the form of an automobile, an airplane, water, etc., i.e. things that do not exist in nature. So I would formulate these two incidents by saying that all facts, whether subjective or objective, are conditional. Hence I can determine two theses: 'the world as fact beyond judgement' and the 'world as a fact of judgement'. The second thesis is objectful [aimful], the first is objectless. For the objectless world there can be neither subjective nor objective forces, inasmuch as the objectless world is beyond cognition and judgement whereas the objective world is one which has come about through judgement and, in the process of its external judgement, has created an object. There are two such objects, a subjective one and an objective one. The subjective object is one which has constructed a subject and has elucidated to people its significance, its construction. Put another way ‒ it is an object that nothing else can use, and the more people learn how to use it, the more the subjective object becomes objective. There are many apparatuses and technological items that can in no way be a property existing objectively for everyone. Why not? Because the public at large does not comprehend them and, in so far as such items are comprehended, they exist objectively. It's all a question of consciousness. If this is so, then the death of a man ‒ as a fact that exists objectively for everyone ‒ cannot be objective for death is not the death of matter or of the chemical movements of life; on the contrary, there occurs a reorganization of elements into a new phase in the eternal processes of nature, eternally alive, never dying, so science can prove that nothing in nature dies. Yet we can see that, for everyone, death does exist objectively: a corpse is borne along the street. For everyone this is a corpse, but, objectively, there also exists the 'soul', i.e. something that no one has ever seen, knows or understands. For everyone there exists God, like an automobile, although no one has seen Him or knows Him. Nobody has seen death. People see only the corpse and then begin to talk about death, i.e. about what they cannot see and about what doesn't exist inasmuch as matter is eternally alive.

Hence the inference that death, God, the soul are subjective concepts, i.e. things that no one else can see and that, objectively, cannot exist.

What dies exactly? Matter does not die, consequently, something else dies. What is this something else? Consciousness and facts are things created by consciousness. If I cease to be conscious, I lose any connection with the world of consciousness, I cease to understand; consciousness ‒ that which links me to people ‒ disappears. But, as matter, I do not lose contact either with people or with nature for I am linked eternally and exist like a cloud in its reincarnations: I was never born and I have not died. Consequently, I can perceive that what dies is outside of matter, i.e. consciousness. Consequently, neither the subjective nor the objective exist. But if death is expressed in consciousness, the question arises ‒ what is man's consciousness, is it absolute or not? Inasmuch as all phenomena exist for him either objectively or subjectively, I think that there is no such thing as absolute consciousness. Objects cannot be recognized. Hence the idea that if there is no such thing as absolute recognition, it does exist in part. And if recognition is a partial process, then, obviously, I am partially alive; and at those moments when I cease to recognize reality, then I become dead. A cemetery, therefore, is only a partial necrosis, in the sense of consciousness. But in the sense of the tactile interactions of elements, of chemical and other processes, life remains.

There are many instances in which what we recognized at one time (which proves that we were alive) proved to be a false recognition: the recognized phenomena had not been recognized and this proves that at the moment when we thought we were recognizing these phenomena they were, in fact, dead.

So much of what now exists objectively for everyone, albeit an automobile as a form of movement, will prove to be a complete misunderstanding in the future, and what had been existing objectively did not exist since its essential authenticity proved to be something different. That which had been recognizable for everyone proved to be unconscious. So if we glance at the whole history of man's consciousness, I think that we won't find a single realized fact. Witness to this are all things that are the products of man's consciousness. But his consciousness creates many things, and this in itself proves that his consciousness cannot conceptualize just one thing. Numerous objects are only fragments which must be united into a whole, albeit like a man in which all his diverse functions (hearing, sight, touch) and all his new technical needs for moving overland or on water (swimming) exist within him. He is a single object, but one which continues to develop its functions still further ‒ sight by means of the telescope, movement by means of new, forceful expressions existing within him. He possesses the ability to affect the effect of his circumstances, an ability that creates the development of his organism.

We try to conceptualize the whole of this process, and therefrom we obtain two categories of conceptualization ‒ subjective and objective; and we may not even conceptualize at all by accepting merely the principle of acceptance or rejection of effect and without going into elaborate reasonings. Indeed, that which I call consciousness and conceptualization is simple conditions, an assumptive agreement. We take this or that to be a unit and this unit then becomes an objective unit for everyone, I regard this unit as a paper ruble instead of a gold one, although I might think quite differently and realize that units, precisely, like points, lines, volumes and planes, do not exist. I tear each unit into thousands of pieces. So nobody can ever give me a unit: In giving me a unit, they ask me to acknowledge it or to place it in a set of circumstances whereby it can preserve its wholeness. But my point of view or my conceptualization of this fact might appear to be subjective, inasmuch as an objective unit exists for the broad mass of people, although, in essence, it does not exist. The question of object or subject raises in turn the question of understanding and perceiving the understanding of phenomena. Both conditions depend on this perception.

But perhaps one can circumvent both the non-existent and the unborn without resorting to these questions. Let us return to practical experience: I have come to a river and I need to get across, but I have no idea of how I should find the means to transfer myself to the other side. Sitting by the bank of the river, I would have noticed that a piece of wood or a leaf floats down the river and does not drown. Just because I now need to cross to the other bank, I, involuntarily, take note of this incident which, while not having the requirement that I have, serves to resolve my conceptualized need. I then begin to look for a similar piece of wood or a piece of unfamiliar material, and I select a piece unaffected by my own weight and I direct it to wherever I want. Furthermore, a bee perhaps never suspects that it is the technological means for fertilizing flowers: the bee does not reason, it simply acts, advancing as needs and circumstances dictate. The bee has no need of a philosopher, of ideological direction, even of consciousness because bare necessity, concrete necessity will compel the bee to bend this way or that. Perhaps consciousness, therefore, is the name given to that movement deriving not from what I have cognized, but from the effect of circumstances (the bank of a river, the other side or some food lying close by). I don't even have to conceptualize or work out whether this is bread or not because what is bread? Well, yes, everything can be explained, but, you see, where it's a question of explaining something, there arises the possibility of the subjective viewpoint, of the objective, relative or contractual viewpoint. A viewpoint is subjective when the listener does not reach an agreement, and it is objective when he begins to understand and to accept the subjective worldview, i.e. to make it his own (so that the subjective viewpoint comes to be the property of two people, then three people, etc.). The third viewpoint ‒ the agreement or contract ‒ is when any kind of analysis is rejected leaving behind a relative viewpoint of the facts.

Further: in order to answer whether the subjective viewpoint exists in art or whether it should be only objective or scientific, I can see from my previous reasoning that this same position pertains to art also. It's exactly the same thing. Art is occupied with one and the same business as everything else, no more, no less. People might object that this is not so ‒ which introduces a field of debate, and reveals those same points we had in our general discussion of the subjective and the objective. For example, an artist might say that he is an extreme individualist, that he experiences something that cannot be expressed and that his painting is the means by which he attempts to transmit his state of excitement, i.e. the moment when something in nature has stimulated him; hence he has transmitted this fact and has depicted the element that excites him. Perhaps he seeks such elements and paints only these since he does not paint what has no effect on him. He is unable to relate such phenomena in words for words are not his medium; he is unable to construct words in the way that painting constructs colors. He cannot explain and, indeed, has no need to explain and finds it impossible to do so since, if a fact that has affected the painter does not effect the public at large in its painterly reflection, this means that both the fact and its reflection are in a subjective condition. It is possible to adduce many other reasons for the physical condition of the subjects, but whatever this condition may be, it is always possible to communicate this effect to them. Any movement in the art of painting is in the same position, and not just painting, but all scientific discoveries at the other end of the physical world are not being apprehended by the public at large and cannot become objectively operative. This is of no benefit to us because a purely and intensely subjective expression may become static and decay.

The development of the subjective perception is essential. If the subjective personality does not wish to live or to live and die in the subjective perception (which is its individual opinion), then this personality must shut itself off and retire to contemplation without uttering a single cry against all the effects encroaching upon it. If, however, this personality has ventured to express its excitement in this or that way, then the responses will enact their effect. At that moment its individual condition will not be individual inasmuch as it has become public. The cry touches the nerve zone that resounds within the subject emitting the cry; this is a radio-telegraph whose sound cries out to be recorded. Others will be unable to perceive it. But this faculty of perceptions possesses one other thing, too. Sometimes a shout or a reflection is unintelligible and the public at large experiences a different condition ‒ a desire to find out, to make this phenomenon exist objectively. Another nervous system, the system of cognition controls this. In this case, science comes on the scene which, in turn, can be divided into two bases: one kind of science aspires to cognize the meaning, the absolute cognition of motives, the other kind merely indicates an approximate motive and so demonstrates how and whence this or that phenomenon occurs. This kind of science links itself to the circumstances of the phenomenon in question and does not try to elucidate the motive for the motives or the meaning of the meanings; it is concerned merely with the experience of unification and disunification. The results of these unifications and disunifications at first have an objectless effect on a person (or perhaps objectless in one case, but objectful in another), i.e. when the piece of wood floating on the water connects with the man's material need and when the experience enables him to resolve his material need. Art, or so it seems to me, has not left this sphere. It has also been divided into the same bases as science has.

Perhaps the painter's activity was quite unknown to himself. What I now regard as familiar was once quite unknown to me. In the beginning I did not think at all and made no analysis of my work. I tried to respond to affective phenomena, at times I attempted to comply with them, to accept them as a whole. I made every effort to do this and to express a precise duplication. On this level there should be no thought of a subjective or objective relationship and it was even impossible for me to say that an object existed for me since to have said this would have required analysis. Later on I began to resist the phenomenon, I rejected reflex action and began to repulse the effect of phenomena. Thus began my polemic and the moment of my formulation of interrelationships. What is called personality and the object began to take shape within me. This brought forth a third element ‒ individuality ‒ which arises or is expressed in the act of deliberate rejection or formulation of a relationship between personality and phenomenon. Hence any depiction in the art of painting represents this or that scheme of formulated relationships. These relationships are called material and pragmatic in one instance, or artistic and aesthetic in another. The material relationships divided up into pragmatic and technological requirements, while the painterly ones divided up into artistic and aesthetic ones. In this way the life of material and artistic or aesthetic schemes was created. I speak here of schemes and, consequently of systems, and people might object to this, maintaining that art can contain neither schemes, nor systems or laws. Indeed, if we raise the question of an absolute law, i.e. of the existence of a point at which there are no interrelationships, then that is so. But if a phenomenon exists before me (a river, mountains, a forest) and it affects me so strongly that I have even formulated a system of technical devices (a pencil, brushes, paints, canvas) with which, fully armed, I now leap out in search of these effects ‒ then, obviously, I am unable to renounce the law, and every result of what I have transferred to the canvas will be the scheme of my artistic interrelationship.

As in the first, material interrelationship, life is divided into two parts, one of action, the other of analysis, and divides people into scientists who make experiments and analyses of a phenomenon, so in art we now see scientists appearing. At this moment in the historical development of art, therefore, the artist occupies a position whereby he has absolutely no idea as to whence, how and why this or that phenomenon occurs. By analogy: I myself have no idea why this or that disease strikes me, whence comes this or that manifestation or what generates this or that kind of behaviour.

From what I have said it is clear that I am establishing a law, a scheme and a system, i.e. a principle which allows all subjective phenomena to become objective. Hence, as a phenomenon of the arts, art can be a scientific discipline and a property of mass culture. My painterly experience of art movements in painting has proved to me that a phenomenon of Cubist painting, at one time unintelligible to the public at large thanks to its subjective complexity, has now become accessible to a great many people ‒ thanks to analysis.

Most artists contrast their own creativity with scientific analysis, with intellect and reason, and give precedence to inspiration or to mood. I myself am a painter, I have known inspiration, I have been tuned up and have continued to work outside of any rational, scientific reasoning. But what are inspiration and mood? It is impossible to understand inspiration or mood or it would be impossible to understand them if they had not been recorded by the pen, by painting or by sculpture. Inspiration and mood are the result of the effect of a phenomenon. Mood, the second stage, comes when the artist is about to set to work, after which his response to the effect of the phenomenon begins to materialize. Therefore, there is nothing from inspiration or mood that cannot be analyzed like any phenomenon. Anyone can maintain that he is unconcerned whether his work will be understood or not. But no one should demand that it be understood. Other researchers, other critics will make this demand. At one time this point of view was operative and perhaps it even exists now among some members of the artistic community. My own standpoint has changed and it rejects the outside researcher or critic. I now develop my subjective perception of effect into an objective existence. That is why the criticism of those persons who are outside the artistic community will be objective but speculative. Other artists have now revolted against this as they would against their class enemies.

So the modern artist is a scientist. The difference between the free artist and the scientist is that the former possesses both artistic and unartistic values whereas the latter has only scientific value beyond the distinctions or advantages of this or that phenomenon. The artist-scientist develops his activity quite consciously and he orients his artistic effect in accordance with a definite plan; he reveals the innermost motives for a phenomenon and for its reflex action; he endeavors to move from one phenomenon to another consciously and according to plan; his system is an objective, legitimate course of his affective force. This is an obvious requirement and it is one that is growing day by day ‒ and we now have an Academy of Artistic Sciences. So an artistic science now begins to take shape and it will become another category of the sciences. After all, the mission of science is to make subjective phenomena exist objectively for the public at large.

In science subjectivism must be regarded as the first phase of the process of objectification, as something that, inevitably, must develop into an objective state. Subjectivism is the beginning of the system and objectivism its end, i.e. the moment when all interrelationships have been processed, when consciousness becomes the system itself and when knowledge of the operative elements have been formulated. If circumstances were invariable, then this objective condition would last forever. I have just said: "when consciousness becomes the system". Consequently, it follows that there is no such thing as consciousness, as a thing that is present as a element or a body that can change existence. Obviously, by consciousness we should understand the simple action of a particular complex of elements upon a second complex which it encounters en route. This action is the simple effect of two phenomena which change each other, of equal condition, there are no differences between them, although they both follow the courses of their own lives. Take a man walking in a certain direction: he comes across a stone on his path and he has to remove it: both complexes have changed each other immediately. The first made various movements and connected them with the stone until the stone itself was changed from one position to another. The man connecting his movements to the stone ‒ in everyday life this process is called a 'conscious movement'. But in my view this was simply the interaction of two forces which then created a number of movements, procedures and even several technical devices which will become apparatuses connecting these devices with the stone.

(From the catalogue: Kasimir Malewitsch – zum 100. Geburtstag; Galerie Gmurzynska, Köln, Juni – Juli, 1978)