Ein Engländer in Moskau

In February 1914, at a public debate in Moscow, Malevich turned up with a wooden spoon pinned to his coat and announced that he had renounced reason. This painting from that year is what renouncing reason looked like on canvas. Half a man's face in a top hat shares the space with a huge white fish, a sword, a ladder, a small church, and Russian words that break off mid-thought. Nothing sits at the right scale and nothing quite connects, which is exactly the point. Malevich and his poet friends were trying to jam ordinary logic. Two of the painted phrases read partial eclipse and racing society, scraps set down for the sound of the words rather than their sense.