Exhibition
June 25 to November 1, 2022
Hilma’s Ghost/Carrie Secrist Gallery
Seeking freedom within oppressive societies, women throughout history have gravitated toward alternative creative and spiritual practices. One such practice is mediumship or communication with the spirit world through a human intermediary. There have been mediums among artists, and since most mediums are women, the history of mediumship in art dovetails neatly with stories of overlooked women artists. Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) is one such figure. A Swedish artist and mystic, she was virtually unknown until 2018, when a revelatory exhibition of her work at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York secured her a place in art history alongside male counterparts such as Vasily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. Af Klint was inspired to create The Ten Largest—a group of ten massive abstract paintings created in 1907—through a series of séances she held with four other women who shared her beliefs. Known as The Five, they contacted spiritual beings they called The High Ones, who instructed af Klint in her groundbreaking work.
