Blockbuster international exhibition is rewriting art history

With the exhibition Hilma af Klint – A Pioneer of Abstraction, an international success seen by over one million people comes to Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (HOK) at Høvikodden.

‒ “We are proud to be able to present these large, colorful, and exciting works by one of history’s first abstract artists”, says HOK’s director, Tone Hansen.

The retrospective at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter is the largest presentation of Swedish Hilma af Klint’s paintings to date. It was first shown at Moderna Museet in Stockholm before going on a successful worldwide tour. Høvikodden is the last stop and therefore also the last chance to see these magnificent works for a long time. Hilma af Klint – A Pioneer of Abstraction has on display nearly 200 works never before shown to the public.

‒ “The exhibition is in many ways rewriting a chapter of art history. Hilma af Klint was a genuine pioneer of abstract art who created unprecedented works at the beginning of the 20th century. She had already developed her unique abstract pictorial language by 1906, several years before breakthroughs by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Kazimir Malevich, who are today considered the primary figures of abstract art in the 1900s”, explains Milena Hoegsberg, chief curator at HOK and responsible for the exhibition at Høvikodden.

Monumental artworks made in secret

The story of Hilma af Klint is a fascinating one and unfamiliar to most. She kept her abstract world and artistic production entirely to herself, while simultaneously creating and exhibiting her more naturalistic printings.

‒ “Hilma af Klint was an artist with a clear sense that she was ahead of her time. Even though she was making abstract paintings as early as 1906, she never exhibited these ground-breaking works in her lifetime. She even wrote in her will that these paintings were not to be exhibited until 20 years after her death; only then would the time be ripe”, Hoegsberg elaborates.

A number of Hilma af Klint’s abstract works are structured in series, with dimensions measuring several meters in height and width. It took as many as four men to hang each painting on the wall. In the enormous works that depict the stages of life from birth to death, geometric forms and symbols are combined with the ornamental.

Spiritual faith

Hilma af Klint’s work is imbued with an authority that stems from a faith in the existence of a spiritual dimension to life. This interest in the spiritual is something af Klimt shared with many of her contemporaries, philosophers, authors, and musicians as well as visual artists.

‒ “A fundamental notion for many artists in the 1900s was that art should broaden our sense of reality. Painting was the means by which Hilma af Klint sought insight into a greater context behind the visible world. An interest in the occult and the spiritual was in vogue at the time, but af Klint kept this side of her artistic pursuits hidden from the rest of the world. HOK is pleased to now be raising awareness of these unique works and to contribute to bringing a bit of art history up to date”, concludes Milena Hoegsberg.

About Hilma af Klint

This exhibition spans Hilma af Klint’s entire artistic career. She was educated at the Royal Academy of Art in Stockholm (1882-87), specializing in naturalistic landscape and portrait painting. In 1906, at the age of 44, she began to paint abstract and symbolic images, and between the years 1906 and 1915 she created her magnum opus, Paintings for the Temple, consisting of 193 paintings in various series and groups. Collectively they are about conveying the idea that everything beyond the visible world is connected.

Landscape painting and botanical sketches comprise a central part of Hilma af Klint’s early work. Her studies attest to her talent for precise and naturalistic rendering of what she observed. She began early on to take an interest in the unseen aspects of reality as well, and beginning in 1896 she participated in weekly meetings of a group of women artists called “The Five” with the objective of expanding their spiritual consciousness. Through automatic drawing and writing, i.e. without deliberately guiding the movements of the pen on the paper, these women reproduced the impressions and messages they received—more than two decades before the Surrealists began experimenting with automatic writing, interpretation of dreams, and the unconscious.

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Title: Hilma af Klint – A Pioneer of Abstraction

Opening: October 1, 2015

Duration: October 2, 2015 – January 3, 2016

Exhibition curator, Moderna Museet:Iris Müller-Westermann

Curator, HOK: Milena Hoegsberg

The exhibition has been organized by Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

Mini seminar:

Talk given by Julia Voss on Hilma af Klint and the Evolution of Art and of the anthology, Hilma af Klint –The Art of Seeing the Invisible, open to the public.

Date: Friday, October 2, 2015

Time: 2:00-5:00 pm (refreshments served, 2:00 pm)

Place: Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden (in the Studio)

Admission to the seminar is free with the entrance ticket, but prior reservation is required.

For more information and reservations, see hok.no

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