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I think she was a very good painter, but the clickbait title is overdoing it. Af Klint has been celebrated[0] for quite a while now, and if we are supposed to start caring about the Venn diagram of “mysticism” and the visual arts, well… first, it was in the air at that time and second, if you want your artists to not be into crazy shit I think you’re going to have boring artists.
I think it would be much more interesting to talk about the intersection of wealth[1] and large-format painting.
I don’t see the click bait there, and the article makes a reasonable case that she preempted the pioneers of abstract art (though I agree she’s also a less swirly mystical artist). From the article:
> Interest in her work grew after a 2016 show at the Serpentine gallery in London, which transferred to the Guggenheim museum in New York, where it broke attendance records with some 600,000 visitors.
This is about a forthcoming study, biography, and film.
I don't see the click-bait, but I do agree on "I think it would be much more interesting to talk about the intersection of wealth[1] and large-format painting."
I went to the Guggenheim exhibit. It really made me want to design a programming language for doing wacky generative geometric art. It was really fun thinking through what geometric construction tools were used for some of the shapes etc
> It really made me want to design a programming language for doing wacky generative geometric art.
Reminded me of Logo.[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)
I don't think it counts as Outsider Art (Art Brut) if the artist has had formal training.
Related:
Hilma Af Klint - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32327182 - Aug 2022 (1 comment)
Hilma af Klint: Painting the Beyond - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19428552 - March 2019 (1 comment)
Hilma af Klint was the first abstract painter - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18244875 - Oct 2018 (9 comments)
Her work showed up recently in the background of Facebook's weird metaverse launch ad.
Thanks, now I will never un-see that twerking flamingo...
O___OHilma was brilliant, but I feel like so much of the attention to her as of late has been around her "mysticism" and not the sheer breadth of her artistic work. Obviously one influences the other, but for me at least, I'm happily fixated on the visuals.
I had never heard about her until a few months ago, and now I hear about her over and over. Strange.
She’s become quite famous recently. It’s very possible that a collector has hired a PR company to blast this stuff through the media as well. PR companies are surprisingly effective.
But nobody noticed. In that case, some early Islamic artist is probably "the true pioneer." And they were well known.
Also: how can I take an article seriously, if it writes "As a clairvoyant and mystic, ..." Are they really claiming Af Klint had supernatural powers?
Does clairvoyant means she had supernatural powers, or that she claimed she had?
The dictionary is clear (*): being clairvoyant means having the faculty. The journalist either didn't want to write that she only claimed it, or believes in it. Neither should pass fact checking.
(*) not that that should matter. If we read "It was the best-attended show in the history of that institution", should we assume it wasn't, but someone had been saying that for private reasons? Does "Born in Stockholm in 1862" mean that she might have been born in Malmö in 1920?
This is misrepresenting the article, which is clearly relaying the artist’s self-belief and identity, not trying to claim that the artist objectively had supernatural powers.
Hence “As a clairvoyant and mystic,” which is a recognition of spiritual belief, and identical to any generic “As a <believer in specific religion>” in format. Much like writing, “As a musician”, does not actually specify any actual musical talent. They could be really terrible at it. In fact this describes much of the music industry.
The very same sentence then goes to on to confirm that it is entirely about the artist’s beliefs: “Af Klint believed that her abstracts were painted under the direction of higher spirits.”
Occam’s razor, people.
> not trying to claim
Indeed, but that wasn't the point. The point was the journalist says Af Klint is clairvoyant, or doesn't want to write "self-proclaimed clairvoyant", possibly out of fear of damaging Af Klint's image.
> The very same sentence then goes to on to confirm
Nonsense. "As a movie star, Garbo believed ...". That doesn't say Garbo only believes she's a movie star. The construction doesn't warrant that interpretation.
> “As a musician”
So, everyone is a clairvoyant, just a very bad one. Well, why add it then to the list of features that have to be mentioned? Plus, it still accepts that clairvoyance is real.
> As a <believer in specific religion>
Look: it has believer in it, literally, unlike "musician" or "clairvoyant". If you now say "but I meant a word like Catholic", then indeed: the common interpretation for a Catholic is a believer (there's another meaning, but that doesn't matter in this context). You can even check current online discussions about witches: people explicitly differentiate between witches and those who believe they are witches. And don't you dare say the latter to someone who believes (s)he's a witch: it suggests they're delusional.
It's counter-factual journalism in an article to whip up public interest for a click-bait-y art historian.
This article does not claim that Af Klimt, or indeed anyone, had or has supernatural powers. It merely describes that they and others held such beliefs.
Any other reading requires performing cartwheels with language to foster a gross misreading of a single sentence fragment, one that even by your own admission is open to multiple interpretations (Catholic indeed), and it’s an interpretation that is not supported by any of the rest of the text.
That final tirade explains why, I guess: this is some personally motivated attack on an individual. The only takeaway I have from this exchange is “be careful with phrasing in published articles, lest some hostile crank try to make it sound like you claimed something unintended”.
> The point was the journalist says Af Klint is clairvoyant, or doesn't want to write "self-proclaimed clairvoyant", possibly out of fear of damaging Af Klint's image.
It’s entirely possible they did write more explicit words to such effect, and the author or a sub-editor trimmed it for length as simply unnecessary. As the most banal explanation, Occam’s razor once again applies, and this seems more likely than allegations of intentional disinformation.
Looking past the weak attempt at slandering a journalist - a profession hardly short of far more deserving targets, when it comes to questionable claims - there is an actual interesting question to be asked, and that’s the extent to which their beliefs drove artistic output. Sadly I will not likely be in London for the Tate Modern exhibition to find out.