Skip to content

Zaha Hadid Architects

Your Starred Items

Archive Search
Studio
Your Starred Items

News

‘Zaha Hadid and Suprematism’ exhibition - 10 years ago

Ten years ago this weekend, ‘Zaha Hadid and Suprematism’ exhibition opened at Galerie Gmurzynska in Zurich.

A seminal exhibition designed and curated by Zaha Hadid juxtaposing works of the Russian avant-garde with projects and of Zaha Hadid Architects, the dialogue of these works constantly shifts and realigns as visitors moved through the exhibition that focussed on four themes: abstraction, distortion, fragmentation, and flotation.

A site specific artwork, the exhibition was designed a projection of a 2-dimensional drawing into 3-dimensional space, transforming the gallery into a spatial painting in which the threshold of the picture plane has expanded and can be entered.

Hadid’s early work took inspiration from the early Russian avant garde, in particular she directly engaged with the work of Kasimir Malevich. Malevich stands here for the momentous discovery of abstraction as an heuristic principle that can propel creative work to hitherto unheard of levels of invention, enabling unfettered creativity where space became the site of pure, unprejudiced invention.

Translating the warped and anti-gravitational space of Russian avant-garde, especially the Suprematists, whose radical new ideas to re-engage and revitalize society she so championed, Hadid set out to build their revolution.