Leonhard Lapin
(1947–2022)
Suprealism LV. 1995
Oil, readymade on canvas. 67.4 x 79.8 cm (framed)
price 4 500
"Suprealism" is a derivative of Leonhard Lapin from ‘suprematism’ by his teacher, Russian avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevitš. Leonhard Lapin in the 1990s initiated modernist art history as a parody of style-history as if it were a new ‘art style’, only to then be its sole representative. It was both an earnest and joking half-affair, combining ready-made (Marcel Duchamp’s term, meaning the reuse of completed, recovered found objects) and Leonhard Lapin’s sensibility.
The specific work here belongs to a larger series and proceeds from a simple idea – the role of the artist is not to add anything to the inventive painting, but to take it away from it. Those parts of the painting that do not coincide with geometric shapes by Malevitš are covered with black paint. As a result, we learn that where Malevitš is, there is life, everywhere else there is nothing.
As of 2023, unfortunately, we read this painting in a completely different way, as if Leonhard Lapin had foreseen the future. If in 1995, when the work was created, Estonia was completely covered with forests and the forest was counted in the banking system as our money, i.e. the guarantee of the Estonian kroon, now there is a lot of clear-cutting, so that nature conservationists and ordinary citizens are aghast.
In any case, Leonhard Lapin was a passionate artist with crucial and diverse interests, who defended the honour of Estonia, the artist, and the culture. In 2018, during the artist’s lifetime, KUMU curated his major survey exhibition Tühjus ja ruum (Emptiness and Space) and published a catalogue.