Kazimir Malevich and El Lissitzky co-founded Molposnovis, the "Young Followers of the New Art," at the Vitebsk Art School. The short-lived name soon shifted through Posnovis into UNOVIS, but the January 17 founding marks the institutional beginning of one of the most concentrated Suprematist collectives. The group joined artists, teachers, and students around a program that treated abstract art as a social and pedagogical project rather than an individual studio style. Under Malevich's leadership, and with Lissitzky as a crucial participant, UNOVIS developed publications, designs, performances, civic decorations, and a collective identity symbolized by the black square.
UNOVIS helped transmit Suprematism into Constructivist, graphic, architectural, and exhibition-design practices across the Russian and European avant-gardes.
