1,10: A Supercentenary of Malevich’s Suprematism marks 110 years since the groundbreaking 0,10 exhibition, where Kazimir Malevich introduced his first non-objective Suprematist works, including the iconic Black Square.

Malevich’s influence has been central to Couper’s practice since encountering Eight Red Rectangles in 1998, a work whose intimacy and materiality reshaped his understanding of abstraction. Over the years, Couper has revisited Malevich’s forms through text pieces, sculptural reinterpretations, and Baroque-inflected paintings.

In 2014, Couper began translating Suprematist compositions into three-dimensional, wood-grained constructions, later expanding the project after studying Andrei Nakov’s early catalogue raisonné. He has since recreated more than 140 works from Malevich’s Suprematist period using a vocabulary of oil paint, lumber, and nails.

Presented in Las Vegas—a city defined by spectacle—1,10 places Suprematism in a new context, contrasting Malevich’s utopian ideals with contemporary image saturation. The exhibition asks whether abstraction can still offer visionary clarity in an age of digital excess.

Couper’s small oil-on-panel works, sometimes accented with gold leaf, connect to his broader practice, including his Isolation Paintings shown in Melbourne, New York, and Los Angeles.

This publication is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Nevada Arts Council.