The exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao explores the life and work of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, highlighting her role as a pioneer of abstraction, from her early works to automatic drawings, key series, and late watercolors.
Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, one of the few educational institutions in Europe that accepted women. In this space, she was trained in traditional academic painting, but soon discovered that her true interest lay in a more spiritual and personal dimension. Abandoning the conventions of classical art, she immersed herself in a new form of abstract expression, influenced by her deep spiritual beliefs.
She immersed herself in a new form of abstract expression, influenced by her deep spiritual beliefs.
Her fascination with the beyond and the esoteric led her to experiment, seeking a way to express these sensations in her works. Through séances, she created some of her first automatic works, a practice that led her to represent a spiritual world in a hidden and secret manner.
Long before artists like Kandinsky, af Klint was already exploring pure abstraction, using art as a medium to convey her deepest emotions and feelings.
In 1906, and for almost a decade, she dedicated herself to her most important and innovative project: the Paintings for the Temple. This monumental series reflects her attempt to translate into images a spiritual and transcendental reality beyond what is visible. It consists of 193 works and drawings that radically depart from the known representations of the time. Filled with color and vitality, her works explore invisible forces and structures, creating a unique, personal, and entirely new artistic vocabulary.
The Guggenheim exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of af Klint’s work, presenting 110 of her Paintings for the Temple, along with some of her early traditional creations, automatic drawings made in collaboration with the spiritualist group The Five, later series dominated by geometry, and the watercolors and sketchbooks from her later years as a painter.
Despite the originality and impact of her works, af Klint rarely showed her most innovative pieces during her lifetime.
It was almost a century after her death that her legacy began to receive the recognition it deserved. The artist herself edited, preserved, and meticulously cataloged her work, stipulating that it would not be exhibited until 20 years after her death. Her intention was for her art to reach a future audience, perhaps more prepared to understand and appreciate it. Thus, her paintings were finally exhibited in 1986, 42 years after her death. However, it has been in the last few decades that her legacy has gained the prominent position it always deserved in art history.
The Hilma af Klint exhibition at the Guggenheim Bilbao is a unique experience that allows visitors to discover one of the most innovative and visionary artists of modern art.
Her works, full of symbolism and spirituality, invite viewers not only to enjoy an impressive visual experience but also to reflect deeply on the boundaries between the tangible and the intangible, the visible and the invisible. As visitors walk through the exhibition, they embark on a fascinating exploration of the unknown through the eyes of an artist who was undoubtedly ahead of her time.
