Film: Peacock Hall 1 pm.
Film: Beyond the Visible Hilma af Klint
Duration: 97 min.
Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was a Swedish artist whose paintings are considered to be among the first major abstract works within Western art history.
In 1906, she began to produce a series of huge, colorful, geometrical works that had no precedent in painting. The paintings often depict symmetrical dualities: up and down, in and out, earthly and esoteric, male and female, good and evil.
Af Klint’s work can be seen in the wider context of the 20th century modern search for new artistic, scientific and political forms.
She was greatly inspired by the spiritual and philosophical movement Theosophy, popular in the late 19th century. This movement sought to uncover what it described as the universal truths underlying all religions, philosophies and sciences. Her paintings are a visual representation of complex spiritual ideas.
She felt her abstract work was so groundbreaking that the world was not ready to see it, so she directed that the work remain unseen until twenty years after her death.
Klint was for years an all-but-forgotten figure in art history before her long- delayed rediscovery showcased at the Guggenheim Museum retrospective in 2018.
This documentary film describes not only the life and craft of Klint, but also the process of her erasure and rediscovery.