Stockholm, Sweden. A legal dispute over Hilma af Klint’s works.
Hilma af Klint is a Swedish artist who lived in the 19th and 20th centuries and who has gained international attention, particularly in recent years, as a pioneer of Western abstraction. Af Klint saw herself not only as a painter but also as a spiritual medium. In this context, she intensively explored anthroposophy, among other things. A large proportion of her works are managed by the Hilma af Klint Foundation, which has been chaired by Hilma af Klint’s great-nephew Erik af Klint for the past two years. However, a legal dispute now exists between him and the other board members in a Stockholm court. Erik af Klint wants to interpret the foundation’s statutes literally—and these stipulate that the artist’s works should only be made accessible to people “seeking spiritual knowledge”. If Erik af Klint is proven right, this would mean the end of public exhibitions of around 1,300 of af Klint’s paintings, watercolors, and drawings. The German curator and Hilma af Klint biographer, Julia Voss, poses the question on her Instagram account of how to judge who is a “spiritual seeker” and who is not.
Source Monopol Magazine
Translation Charles Cross
Image Hilma af Klint, 1901, Public domain
