Correct figures / Incorrect figures

Svetlana Kopystiansky uses a variety of media, from sculpture to drawing, photography, film and installation. Born in Russia, both Svetlana and her husband Igor identified with the aspirations of the Russian avant-garde, and at the same time, their works are made in dialogue with American and British conceptual art of the late 20th Century.1

The drawings ‘Correct figures / Incorrect figures’ were made in the period prior to the artist's emigration from Russia to New York. Clearly referencing Malevich, these drawings depict opaque black shapes – a square, a cross and a circle, in combination with two slightly lopsided black shapes – a distorted square and a cross with one edge shaved off. These ‘incorrect’ figures destabilise the symmetry of the work as a whole. Combining the heritage of the Russian avant-garde and Suprematism with the influence of post-minimalism and conceptual art, ‘Correct figures / Incorrect figures’ invoke and subvert the artist’s avant-garde inheritance.

1. Igor Kopystiansky, correspondence with Anthony Bond, Art Gallery of NSW, 08/11/2010