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IRWIN
irwin
Corpse of Art, 2003–2004

The Slovenian artists' collective IRWIN has frequently reflected the symbolism and the aesthetics of East and West European avant-gardes. Their installation, Corpse of Art, copies the circumstances of the laying out of Malevich's corpse in his Leningrad flat in May 1935: displaying it in the Suprematist coffin designed by his student, Nikolai Suetin, according to Malevich's own concept. IRWIN shows the Black Square alone above the coffin – and leaves out the two realistic images from Malevich's work, which flanked the Suprematist icon in the original arrangement. In this way, IRWIN simultaneously radicalises and undermines Malevich's totalitarian claim to mould not only his whole life but also his own death. As a symbol of the failure of his utopias of Suprematism, IRWIN erects a memorial to them at the same time and makes Malevich's displayed corpse into the medium of his universal ideas beyond his own death.

IRWIN, founded in 1983
Dušan Mandic * 1954, Miran Mohar * 1958, Andrej Savski * 1961,
Roman Uranjek * 1961, Borut Vogelnik * 1959

IRWIN, Corpse of Art, 2003–2004
mixed media installation (wood, textile, wax, hair, vase, flowers)
dimensions variable
Courtesy Galerija Gregor Podnar, Berlin/Ljubljana
photo: Jesko Hirschfeld, 2007