Spiritual sparks helped inspire the radical and visionary art of Hilma af Klint

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Roberta Smith

Altarpieces, left to right: No. 2, Altarpiece (Altarbild), 1915; No. 3, Altarpiece (Altarbild), 1915; and No. 1, Altarpiece (Altarbild), 1915. Credit: George Etheredge for The New York Times

If you like to hallucinate but disdain the requisite stimulants, spend some time in the Guggenheim Museum’s staggering exhibition, “Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future.” The museum’s High Gallery — the name has added resonance in this context — displays the show’s rapturous overture, a series of 10 paintings by af Klint (1862-1944), a little-known Swedish painter, modernist pioneer and erstwhile spiritualist. Collectively titled “The Ten Largest,” they may induce disorientation, not the least for the way they blow open art history. As with her religious interests, af Klint was not a visual monotheist. There’s a continual fluctuation in forms, references and degrees of abstraction. [More]