Oh goodness.
What has been described as one of the most important paintings of the 20th century’s avant-garde movement could also be quite problematic. Experts were looking at Kazimir Malevich’s 1915 painting ‘Black Square’ under a microscope when they found an inscription that says: Battle of Negroes in a dark cave.
Eish.
The same experts reckon that the phrase is in reference to another modernist artwork painted nearly a decade before by French writer and humorist, Alphonse Allais, called Combat de Nègres dans une cave pendant la nuit (Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night).
A pretty well-spread joke at the time in Europe, it is horribly racist.
[source: metro]
