Reviews
In the wake of the acclaimed documentary Beyond the Visible comes an extensive catalogue of the Swedish artist, whose revolutionary work as the first abstract painter was dismissed because she was a woman., The Guggenheim Museum offers a revisionary chapter about the start of modern abstraction in its current headliner, "Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future," introducing works that this Swedish artist and mystic made in 1906-7., 'Paintings for the Future' endorses Klint's mystical conviction that the spiral symbolizes the dualities of the universe--good and evil, male and female, known and unknown--slowly reaching equilibrium., The project of Hilma af Klint and her female colleagues was the result of great maturity, of confidence and collective efforts, performed both in work and in life., Af Klint did not ask for her work to be destroyed, only delayed. She did not wait for the world to discover her paintings. The world had to wait for them., A week after I saw [af Klint's paintings], their pulsing loveliness remains undimmed in my mind, like a self-replenishing sense memory of summer., Af Klint was not part of the larger abstract art movement so populated by men, but many of her paintings--vibrant, strange paintings inspired by her deep interest in Spiritism and Theosophy--predate those famous as pioneers of the style., [af Klint's] art's power is in its secrecy, its marking-off of sacred space. Its period of gestation, of waiting for humanity to catch up, is a demonstration of its sincerity., af Klint's contribution, arrayed here in all its abundant originality, threatens to reduce to a footnote the mostly male history of esoteric abstraction., Profoundly moving. ... It is as though, in our apocalyptic time, we need af Klint's work now more than ever, and the purity of vision and intent it represents., The art, fearfully esoteric and influenced by its creator's séances and spiritualism, matches a present mood of restless searching., The canvases are massive and their idiosyncratic shapes, squiggles, and colors provide the viewer with an overwhelming sense of wonder., The concentrated spirituality- egoless consciousness- that is delivered by the best pictures here, so fresh that they might have been made this morning or tomorrow or decades from now, feels like news that is new again., [The paintings are] talismanic, vibrating with hidden mystical meaning. ... they represent the enduring evolution of the entire cosmos, the triumphant union of dualities., Gorgeous book.... The implications of these works are not only gargantuan, but also infinitely pleasurable to look at. And as written about in this wonderful volume, great to read about. By the time you put down this book, Hilma af Klint will be embedded in your visual library forever., Somewhat like the biomorphic forms of a later artist like Joan Miró, many of these pieces play with geometry and floral shapes that frequently overlap as they seem to swim across the canvas., [The exhibition] remains as radical as ever and offers a welcome retort to modernism's male-centric narrative., The current celebration of af Klint's paintings suggests the primacy of visual communication should be backdated. The retrospective also underscores the important role that women played in its emergence., Klint created her own optical language with visual, chromatic, structural, and narrative syntax. Her artistic ship sails some of the deepest waters around., The show feels like both a transmission from an unmapped other world and a perfectly logical correction to the history of Modern art., She had a penchant for the occult - a "commission" from a spirit at a seance inspired her to create her most striking paintings..., Af Klint set about composing for posterity an alluring eye-music that echoed back the complex psyche of her age., Af Klint's ascendancy feels inevitable: She could be viewed as a heroine for our current moment, an artist who rejected commercial success, resisted the pull of self-publicity, and challanged the myth of individual authorship., Klint's biomorphoc compositions call to mind horticultural diagrams conveived on psychedelics - and showcase a level of mysticism not found in successors like Kandinsky., [af Klint's] striking artwork expresses a vision of non-figurative art that was ahead of her time and establishes her as a pioneer of abstract art.
