How flat is darkness?

Abstract

Is Malevich’s “Black Square” black? Is it really a square? Was it really meant to be a square? If we think of it not as being black but, instead, as an attempt to represent the darkest shade of dark, maybe we can go somewhere else, our mind going forward and backwards at the same time. Forward, as we might feel we’re in the process of finding a new meaning for it, at least to ourselves. Or backwards, if we feel we are in the process of finding out what it was meant to be, or even what it turned out to be, just after it was made and beyond that, having it reached somewhere in time a stable state, or having reached a transitory state before becoming something else.