Vagrich and the Black Square

The film is a collage, an essay and a documentary in tribute to an avant-garde artist and writer Vagrich Bakhchanyan, who happened to be a personal friend of the filmmaker. Vagrich was born in Kharkov, Ukraine. In the late 60’s–early 70’s he worked as an artist for the „liberal” Soviet publication Literaturnaya Gazeta. He immigrated to the USA in 1978 and died in New York City in 2009. Mixing animation, mock-newsreels, staged theatrical piece and ‘’straight” documentary technique Vagrich and the Black Square transposes viewers in the absurd and bitterly funny universe of the artist, who refused to conform neither to the Soviet rule nor to the ”free market”. The filmmaker reflects on Vagrich’s life and the mystique of his connection with Kazimir Malevich's famous Black Square - an inception point of Russian avant-garde.