Paintings For The Future/Spirituality and Identity

Guggenheim Museum Response

Hilma af Klint: Paintings For The Future/Spirituality and Identity

When one thinks of the Guggenheim Museum, one of the first things that comes to mind might be Frank Lloyd Wright. Being a former Architectural Technology major, this was a real treat to finally witness in person and what I had learned about in my classes through pictures. However as a Fine Arts and Graphic Design major I had to admit I had never heard of Hilma af Klint before. I’m always fascinated by the process of the artist and designers. "How did they come up with the concept?", What influenced them?", "What was their timeline?","Did they a special type of organizational system to keep track of the work flow?", "Were there any problems and what was the solution?", are just a few questions permanently on my mind. Looking at Hilma af Klint's work I was wondering about the intricacies of her process, especially since she had such a vast body of work. While reading the Guggenheim article  “Who Was Hilma af Klint?: At the Guggenheim, Paintings by an Artist Ahead of Her Time” by Caitlin Dover, I had a so many questions.Tracey Bashkoff states, “Hilma af Klint’s abstract work predates the work by artists such as Kandinsky, Mondrian, Kupka, Malevich, artists that we have long considered the pioneers of abstraction. She begins working in an abstract mode as early as 1906.” (Dover) So much of her work looks as if it could be done in the 60's or 70's. it has a "retro" almost "psychedelic" vibe. Her work would have fit in perfectly duding that time, considering many more people were opening up to different cultures, religious practices, and lifestyles.  

As far as spirituality, I have no real interest in the “occult”, however, I can relate to parts of her practice and beliefs. My family is very spiritual and throughout my life was taught certain gifts come from a higher power, meaning GOD. I was raised the AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church, a blend of Christianity, Black American southern traditions and certain aspects of African rituals/Spirituality. It isn’t uncommon for the body to serve as a vessel to carry out a greater purpose or relay messages from the higher power, for the greater good. In church, we welcome the Holy Spirit into the place of worship and it frequently "enters" people. We call this being "touched by the Holy Spirit." In Hilma af Klint's conversations with the "High Masters",the spirits she communicated with, she believed that they relayed future messages for humankind, through her during the seances with The Five. 

In “Secret Séances and High Masters: The Making of Mystic Painter Hilma af Klint” it states, "... taking turns serving in the role of medium, they then drew the images received from a collection of spirits known as the High Masters. These sessions, whose messages were meticulously documented in a series of sketchbooks, were convened regularly for a decade." (Ventura) I felt a connection to her work both formally and conceptually. The colors she used were assigned certain meanings and functions, such as yellow is masculine, blue is feminine and green is when the two combine. I recently did a series of eight paintings where I used colors to represent emotion in biological landscapes by combining brain and bodily functions with elements of nature ie. air, water, neurons, synapses, outer space,  geometric and organic shapes, macro and micro scales to create different environments and spaces. Af Klint's work was hypnotizing and she shared her journey with the world so that we too could experience what she did, or atleast portions of it. The scale of her works vary from very large to small. The geometrical and symmetrical components of her pieces gave them an architectural quality to them. Observing af Klint's work was a truly enjoyable experience. The mystic tones of the  subject matter drew me in closer, until I felt like the shapes were floating out. Each shape could be read as a symbol in a message to decode, like maps of her inner most thoughts and conversations/ instructions with the spirit realm. It was like reading different chapters of a book of ideas. Every piece had it's own personality even those that were part of a series or collection.

During my walk through the museum I went through a wave of emotions. First curiosity, then amazement, delight, and later on anger. Perhaps, one might feel cheated because Hilma af Klint’s name didn’t come up during many mandatory art history classes where we learn about the pioneers of abstract art, in fact, we rarely learn about women. Af Klint dedicated her life to fulfilling the work for this “higher purpose”, “Paintings for the future.” She finally got her "Paintings For the Temple" in the circular temple with the spiral center, "The Guggenheim Museum" that she envisioned so long ago. In conclusion, her work ethic, creativity, technical skill and open-mindedness is truly admirable, even mores when learning the dates of the works. This quote by R.H. Quaytman, (an artist who's work I also enjoyed on the top level of the Guggenheim and has subject matter is similar to that of Hilma af Klint), sums up one of the main reasons I was so enthralled by her work, “If you . . . didn’t know anything, you’d think these paintings were made ten or twenty years ago. You would not know how old they were. And what’s so thrilling about her work, I find, is how contemporary it feels.”(Dover) This exhibition may leave viewers inspired to explore their own spirituality, inter-connectivity with others and the universe.