Erased Green Dollar Sign
2001, by Felix Gmelin After Kasimir Malevitch and Alexander Brener (1997)
Oil on panel in a white gold leaf frame, 80 x 66 cm
The money from the West, the anger from the East? The Russian
artist Alexander Brener, 35, probably wanted to signal something like that
when on Saturday two weeks ago he reworked an icon of modern painting.
He went into the Stedelijk Museum with an aerosol can and sprayed a poisonous green dollar sign on a delicately painted "Suprematist" composition - Light Cross on Gray Background. With his act of vandalism Brener certainly defiled the work of a fellow countryman, the color and form mystic Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935), but in him he only wants to see an "epigone" of the West in comparison to the "true Russian", Pavel Filonow, Malevich's rival.
He went into the Stedelijk Museum with an aerosol can and sprayed a poisonous green dollar sign on a delicately painted "Suprematist" composition - Light Cross on Gray Background. With his act of vandalism Brener certainly defiled the work of a fellow countryman, the color and form mystic Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935), but in him he only wants to see an "epigone" of the West in comparison to the "true Russian", Pavel Filonow, Malevich's rival.
From Der Spiegel 3 / 1997