HILMA AF KLINT

To start our discussion around time, today we bring the work of artist Hilma af Klint, who created over 150 paintings between the years of 1906 and 1915. These paintings were named The Paintings for the Temple and consist of primarily abstract imagery and organic forms inspired by nature's geometry. Klint's work attempted to present a world beyond the one we know; a world that transcended its current time and challenged how we observe the world. 

Klint imagined a temple which would house the large paintings and described it in one of her many journals as a "round building, where visitors would walk upwards along a spiraling staircase on a spiritual journey". Hilma's description is extraordinary as she described the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, which would be built only decades later and be the hosting museum for her solo exhibition "Paintings for the Future" in 2018. Frank Lloyd Wright, the Guggenheim's architect, created a nontraditional place for non-objective art and both him and Klint shared an affinity for organic forms and the spiritual symbolism around the spiral. Both Wright's architectural vision and Klint's paintings were a break from tradition, offering a new approach to creative expression. 

Klint's mysticism involved many interests in the occult, Theosophy, spiritualism and scientific concepts. The Paintings for the Temple served as a testament to the higher spirits and the artist spent nearly a decade working on them. Her abstract paintings ultimately changed the course of art history and posed the question: what is the role of time in the esoteric-like process of art making?

How can artists manipulate the passage of time through their practice?