Paintings for the Future
Installation view: Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, October 12, 2018–April 23, 2019. Photo: David Heald. © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
INSTALLATION VIEW
HILMA AF KLINT: PAINTINGS FOR THE FUTURE
Gallery Information:
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
on display:
October 12th, 2018 - April 23rd, 2019
hours:
tu-sa: 10am - 8pm
su-mo: 10am - 5:30pm
admission:
$25
Last month an exhibition closed which set the attendance record in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s sixty-year history. Interestingly, the exhibition was not of an artist that most of us studied in school. Honestly, it was not by an artist that I had even heard of six months ago.
Yet, after having had the honor of walking through the Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future exhibition with Curatorial Assistant David Horowitz (aid to Tracey Bashkoff, Director of Collections and Senior Curator), much of my waking—and more than some of my sleeping—hours have been spent thinking about this amazing woman… her story, her discipline, her art.
I was mesmerized by af Klint’s color combinations and the choices and symbolism that went behind each stroke.
Blues (the feminine) and yellow (the masculine) coming together in green (wholeness).
Hilma af Klint
Group IV, The Ten Largest, No. 7, Adulthood (Grupp IV, De tio största, nr 7, Mannaåldern), 1907 from untitled series
Tempera on paper mounted on canvas, 315 x 235 cm
The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm
Photo: Albin Dahlström, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Group IV, The Ten Largest, No. 7, Adulthood, 1907
hilma af klint
Hilma af Klint
Group I, Primordial Chaos, No. 16 (Grupp 1, Urkaos, nr 16), 1906-1907 from The WU/Rose Series (Serie WU/Rosen)
Oil on canvas, 53 x 37 cm
The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm
Photo: Albin Dahlström, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Group I, Primordial Chaos, No. 16, 1906-1907
hilma af klint
Installation view: Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, October 12, 2018–April 23, 2019. Photo: David Heald. © 2018 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
INSTALLATION VIEW
HILMA AF KLINT: PAINTINGS FOR THE FUTURE
The swan… a symbol within esoteric thought of wisdom, purity, grace and awakening of the soul.
Hilma af Klint
No. 2a, The Current Standpoint of the Mahatmas (Nr 2a, Mahatmernas nuvarande ståndpunkt), 1920 from Series II (Serie II)
Oil on canvas, 36.5 x 27 cm
The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm
No. 2a, The Current Standpoint of the Mahatmas, 1920
hilma af klint
Hilma af Klint
Group IX/SUW, The Swan, No. 17 (Grupp IX/SUW, Svanen, nr 17), 1915 from The SUW/UW Series (Serie SUW/UW)
Oil on canvas, 150.5 x 151 cm
The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm
Photo: Albin Dahlström, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Group IX/SUW, The Swan, No. 17, 1915
hilma af klint
Voids and unity… opposites and oneness… longing and spirituality… her work speaks to it all
Feeling as though a power greater than herself moved her brush and inspired her visions, Hilma af Klint devoted years of her life to creating a body of work that she shared with so few. Though she tirelessly sought clarity and discernment, af Klint never quite knew the full meaning of the pieces she created— only that she was the person chosen to bring them to life. And, upon her death, she insisted her work not be shown for twenty years in hopes that the world by then would be prepared to receive it.
Almost seventy-five years after her death, we may still lack the ability to fully discern the complexity of af Klint’s creations held within the simplicity of her abstraction. Still, we are better for having experienced her work.
I am changed having seen Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future— a statement I do not make lightly.
Abstraction has a mother, and her name is Hilma af Klint.