Hilma af Klint

Cindy Guzman

Professor Cacoilo

Image, Culture, and Identity

Hilma af Klint at the Guggenheim Museum

The Guggenheim Museum is definitely a museum to visit if you haven’t already. Not only is its architecture a form of art itself but the ambiance and curation of the work displayed is phenomenal. The work of Hilma af Klint, Paintings for the Future, was beautifully curated in a way that glorified the reflections of her work that involved guidance in spiritualism and a belief in radical holistic connectivity. Not only was some of her work produced 100 years ago but she was one of the first female artists who were radically abstract. It was quite inspiring that giving the social status as a woman in the early 20th century and the gender inequality, 100 years later her work is being displayed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Her legacy broke the stereotypes which allowed her to create this safe space where she could be herself through out her paintings. In the 1890s, af Klint was deeply involved in spiritualism and had a group of four other women who shared her beliefs who called themselves The Five. They believed they “communicated with and received messages from beings of higher consciousness by entering trance states or using a psychograph (a tool used to record psychic transmissions)”(Dover). She and these four other women strongly held a common belief that one could say becomes apart of ones identity. Being part of this collective mind-liked environment is what is appealing to most people and in her case, these theories of humanity’s connection to the universe is what influenced her paintings.

The way she paints mixes floral, geometric, and biomorphic forms with letters and invented words that creates a vocabulary of complex and shifting meanings, which come from her interpretations of trying to link together all these elements to produce works that are primitive examples of what one can say is visual communication or today's term -- graphic design. Hilma af Klint does an astonishing job at trying to interpret this picture where the audience can draw upon “disparate fields of knowledge in a synthetic manner. [Where she produces] a picture that is both image and diagram. . . . In essence, she’s offering a Gaia-like theory of radical holistic interconnectivity”(Dover).  I guess if I took the time to reflect on more spiritualism it could definitely play a role in my own work and projects if I understood a reasoning or mission behind my purpose in life. Most of my work is influenced by experiences I’ve related to or personally been through myself. In a way how the universe is connected through this interconnectivity of time and space, I could interpret my own experiences into narratives that could possibly bring awareness to social norms or even self-reflection on those who could be inspired. Similar to Hilma af Klint, this production of interpreting these “received messages” (in my case, life experiences) in a way that is visually communicative of emotion or feeling to be able to introduce a glimpse of my identity is definitely my motive behind my graphic design.

works cited: 
“Who Was Hilma Af Klint?: At the Guggenheim, Paintings by an Artist Ahead of Her Time.” Guggenheim, 12 Oct. 2018, www.guggenheim.org/blogs/checklist/who-was-hilma-af-klint-at-the-guggenheim-paintings-by-an-artist-ahead-of-her-time.