Vladimir Azarov

"I transformed myself in the zero of form." Kazimir Malevich

About

Vladimir Azarov is an architect from Moscow. His inspiration to write poetry came to him in Canada after a long career as an architect in Russia. Perhaps the natural and wild landscapes and a welcoming Canadian arts scene encouraged his poetic sensibility and this newfound need to put it on paper in English: memories of his life experiences, his impressions of art - architecture, painting, music, poetry - and his attitude toward his new surroundings became the subjects of his writing.

Black Square

The Black Square of Kazimir Malevich is one of the most famous creations of Russian art in the last century. The first Black Square was painted in 1915 and became the turning point in the development of the Russian avant-garde, of painting and in architecture. The result was the appearance of a new representational religion - new art movement - SUPREMATISM. Malevich established the concept of the "zero of form". As he himself wrote in "From Cubism to Suprematism" -- "I have transformed myself in the zero of form."

"The image is the final path -...- all paths lead to the image particularly if it is holy, hence I see the justification and true significance of the Orthodox corner in which the image stands -- THE HOLY IMAGE -- as opposed to all other images and representations of sinners..."

Black Square is painting beyond painting --

Black Square is an enlarged particle, the geometric sign of writing

The character, or letter of the squared space of meaning
The structured fragments of the thought --
Of any sentences, and any lines and stanzas –
Black Square is a beginning of beginnings
The sharp blind touch in the dark forest of the life --
Black Square is zero form and just a bordered micro-space
Of the long lines – straight curved zigzagged but whole or interrupted --
Black Square is silence revived by mind then voice!

Personal Account

For many years I worked as an architect, wondering always if the buildings I designed and built were good.

It was after my long career as an architect that I finally explored my life long passion for poetry. My concerns in poetry have the same eagerness as in architecture. What happens in readers' heads, when they are brave enough to read my books about the endless memories of my chaotic (and silently rebelling) life in the Soviet Union? Of Leningrad, the Northern-Venice, where I was born, from which my parents (and I along with them) were exiled to Kazakhstan due to the insanity of the Stalinist regime? These books also tell about my Don Quixote like fights with the Soviet soul-sapping "mills" and about the survival of my independence and individuality.

Who am I? After Stalin died, I was allowed to return from a labour settlement in Kazakhstan to Moscow where I came to study Architecture. I worked for the huge company Mosproject for many years. I later organized my own Architectural Bureau.

When I visited my son working in Canada, I liked downtown Toronto very much, with its structures from a number of great contemporary architects. In 2002 I settled here. But with no Canadian architectural experience I could not continue my previous career and in spite of the added difficulty that German was my second language. I continued studying the English language and its literature which was not unknown to me in Russia. After some years, I began to write poetry in the Classes of poet Jay MillAr.

Then I met the publishers who love Russian culture, literature and art - Exile Editions, Barry and Michael Callaghan. Here I published some of the books you see in this website and I hope to publish more.