I reconnected with Kasimir Malevich’s beautiful and haunting 1933-34 painting entitled The Running Man or Peasant Between A Cross And A Sword while researching the text and history of Tom Clark’s Beyond The Pale entry (Link).
Dating from the very end of the great Suprematist artist’s career, The Running Man is interpreted as an indictment of the Holdomor, the 1932-33 Soviet Russian-perpetrated “Terror Famine”in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which killed many millions. This Stalinist scar across the 20th century is justifiably recognized and annually commemorated by post-USSR independent Ukraine, among other countries, as a political, class-cleaning, genocide.
I couldn’t help contrasting Malevich’s brackets (hieratic figures and shapes; color borders; arrested time and motion) with yesterday’s annual nauseating public relations distraction force-feeding the idle (because jobless) American public the crucial news of the U.S. president’s NCAA “March Madness” basketball predictions. (“My pick: Michigan State. Bring it home for me. It's been a while since I've won my pool.") Good golly Miss Molly. Where does he find the time?
I love when Ian Hunter asks at the end of Mott The Hoople’s All The Young Dudes: "How are you feeling?” and then answers his own question, "I bet you're feeling really sick.”
Cheer up (dude). It’s Spring.
