Julia Voss

A highly anticipated biography of the enigmatic and popular Swedish painter. The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) was forty-four years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had never been seen before. Today, it is widely accepted that af Klint was one of the earliest abstract academic painters in Europe. But this is only part of her story. Not only was she a working female artist, she was also an avowed clairvoyant and mystic. Like many of the artists at the turn of the twentieth century who developed some version of abstract painting, af Klint studied Theosophy, which holds that science, art, and religion are all reflections of an underlying life-form that can be harnessed through meditation, study, and experimentation. Well before Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich declared themselves the inventors of abstraction, af Klint was working in a nonrepresentational mode, producing a powerful visual language that continues to speak to audiences today. The exhibition of her work in 2018 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City attracted more than 600,000 visitors, making it the most-attended show in the history of the institution. Despite her enormous popularity, there has not yet been a biography of af Klint—until now. Inspired by her first encounter with the artist’s work in 2008, Julia Voss set out to learn Swedish and research af Klint’s life—not only who the artist was but what drove and inspired her. The result is a fascinating biography of an artist who is as great as she is enigmatic.

A Biography

Hilma Af Klint

Beate Söntgen

Dieser Reader leistet Pionierarbeit, indem er unterschiedlichste kunstkritische Stimmen aus der Gegenwart und aus der Geschichte versammelt und kommentiert. Die Vielfalt der Argumente, der Darstellungsweisen und der Kriterien fordert die Diskussion heraus, wie sich Kunstkritik unter Bedingungen von Globalität verstehen und schreiben lässt. BEATE SÖNTGEN (*1963) ist Professorin für Kunstgeschichte an der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg. Sie studierte Kunstgeschichte, Philosophie und Neuere Deutsche Literatur in Marburg und Berlin. Sie ist Leiterin des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs »Kulturen der Kritik: Formen, Medien, Effekte« und Co-Leiterin des Programms »PriMus – Promovieren im Museum«. JULIA VOSS (*1974) ist Honorarprofessorin an der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg. Sie studierte Kunstgeschichte, Neuere Deutsche Literatur und Philosophie in Berlin und London. Sie ist selbst als Kunstkritikerin und Journalistin tätig und war stellvertretende Leiterin des Feuilletons der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung.

Why Art Criticism? A Reader

Kurt Almqvist

Tracey Bashkoff

Isaac Lubelsky

New research and cultural context on the life and art of Hilma af Klint The 2018 exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, introduced the general public to the abstract mystical masterpieces of Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944). Based on a seminar held at the Guggenheim Museum at the opening of this acclaimed exhibition, this volume compiles the insights of the seminar's contributors alongside reproductions of works, archival photographs and images from af Klint's journals. Hilma af Klint: Visionary explores the social and spiritual movements that appeared at the turn of the 20th century, inspiring the pioneers of modernism and abstract art: Kandinsky, Mondrian, Malevich and af Klint. What was the zeitgeist that inspired such an eruption in abstract art? What were the conditions that created Hilma af Klint? Academics and experts Julia Voss, Tracey Bashkoff, Isaac Lubelsky, Linda Dalrymple Henderson and Marco Pasi each take a different approach. Voss analyzes af Klint's biography, pinpointing five important events in her life; Bashkoff presents her connection to Hilla Rebay and her plans for the building of a temple; Lubelsky traces the origins of theosophy in New York; Henderson examines the occult and science; and Pasi considers esotericism's changing role in culture.

Visionary

Philipp Deines

A moving biography, told in vivid illustrations, this graphic novel features key moments in the life of Swedish artist and pioneer of abstract painting Hilma af Klint (1862–1944). Long underrecognized, af Klint has been amid a sensational rediscovery that continues to take art audiences by storm. Artist Philipp Deines traces the story of now world-famous af Klint’s unique life and groundbreaking oeuvre through five chapters featuring her development as an artist, her family background, and her relationship to the spiritual. Highlighting how she came to her distinctive paintings, her spiritual quest, and the friends who helped her, this is a story of the strength it took af Klint to continue as an artist against all odds. Beautifully drawn, brightly colored, and well researched, this graphic novel is a new way of looking at the story of an artist. Referencing Julia Voss’s new biography of af Klint, Deines presents an accessible and lively introduction for many ages. Biography, art history, and contemporary narrative style merge and complement each other in this magnificent visual world.

The Five Lives of Hilma af Klint

Nominiert für den Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse 2020 Groß, radikal, ihrer Zeit voraus – Hilma af Klint, die Pionierin der abstrakten Malerei Sie schuf mehr als 1000 Gemälde, Skizzen und Aquarelle und hat die Malerei revolutioniert. Schon vor Kandinsky oder Mondrian malte sie abstrakte Werke, die durch ihre Farben und Formen zutiefst beeindrucken. Und sie war eine Frau von großer Freiheit und Zielstrebigkeit, die sich bewusst den Regeln des männlich dominierten Kunstbetriebs entzog. Sie wusste, dass sie ihrer Zeit voraus war: Mit siebzig Jahren verfügte sie, dass ihre Bilder erst 20 Jahre nach ihrem Tod zu sehen sein sollten. Hilma af Klint war eine schwedische Malerin, deren Neuentdeckung als die kunsthistorische Sensation der vergangenen Jahre gilt. Auf Basis umfangreicher Recherchen erzählt Julia Voss jetzt das ungewöhnliche Leben dieser Ausnahmekünstlerin, zerstört zahlreiche Klischees und Mythen und zeichnet zugleich das Bild einer Epoche, in der die weltpolitischen Umbrüche nicht nur die Malerei revolutionierten.

Biographie

Hilma af Klint – »Die Menschheit in Erstaunen versetzen«

Hilma af Klint

Joy Harjo

Suzan Frecon

Helen Molesworth

Susan Aberth

Max Rosenberg

The first detailed survey of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint’s groundbreaking Tree of Knowledge series “Revelatory and sublime. . . . Her work remains conceptually open enough for viewers to draw their own conclusions, insert their own meaning and feel transported to other glorious worlds.” —The New York Times One of the most inventive artists of the twentieth century, af Klint was a pioneer of abstraction. Her first forays into nonobjective painting preceded the work of Kandinsky and Mondrian and radically mined the fields of science and religion. Deeply interested in spiritualism and philosophy, af Klint developed an iconography that explores esoteric concepts in metaphysics, as demonstrated in Tree of Knowledge. This rarely seen series of works on paper renders orbital, enigmatic forms, visual allegories of unification and separateness, darkness and light, beginning and end, life and death, and spirit and matter. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Hilma af Klint: Tree of Knowledge at David Zwirner, New York, in 2021 and David Zwirner, London, in 2022, this book features a text by the art historian Susan Aberth examining af Klint’s spiritual and theosophical influences. With a conversation between curator Helen Molesworth and the US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo discussing connections between Tree of Knowledge and Native theories, the publication broadens the scope of philosophical interpretations of af Klint's timeless work. Also included is a newly commissioned essay by the celebrated af Klint scholar Julia Voss, a contribution by the artist Suzan Frecon, and a text by art historian Max Rosenberg that further develops the conversation around why af Klint’s work was not recognized in its time.

Hilma Af Klint: Tree of Knowledge

Hilma af Klint. En biografi

Mänskligheten kommer att förundras

Rainer Willmann

Discover Ernst Haeckel, the 19th-century artist-biologist who found beauty in even the most unlikely of creatures. This collection features 300 prints from his most important publications, including the majestic Kunstformen der Natur and his extensive catalogues of marine life. As biodiversity is ever-more threatened, these exquisite images are...

Ernst Haeckel - 40 Years

Daniel Birnbaum

Melissa Blanchflower

Melissa Larner

Jennifer Higgie

Emma Enderby

Painting the Unseen

Lars Bang Larsen

Raphael Gross

Dorothee Wierling

Alexia Pooth

Doris Blume

Every few years since 1955, the creators of documenta set themselves the task of providing an insight into current trends in art and of capturing the zeitgeist of recent art production. Despite its name, documenta's primary concerns are neither with the simple documentation of individual artists and their work nor with developments in art history, but instead with providing a historical space where art reflects and comments on social constellations and political or social change, or demands it through art interventions. documenta is not only a historical testimony and event, but also a show at which - through the medium of art-- self-interpretation becomes the catalyst for debate and historical change. For the first time, this book places the history of documenta in the context of the political, cultural and societal development of Germany during the second half of the twentieth century, illustrating how art and history can be explored in terms of a mutually dependent relationship.

Politics and Art

Documenta

Behind the White Cube

Hinter weißen Wänden

Darwins Jim Knopf

Kaum ein Werk hat so weit ausgestrahlt wie das von Charles Darwin (1809-1882): Seine Evolutionstheorie hat Eingang in Philosophie und Geschichtstheorie gefunden, in Soziologie, Kunstgeschichte oder Ethnologie, und steht noch immer im Zentrum der Biologie. Gleichzeitig provoziert kaum eine Theorie so unterschiedliche Reaktionen. Für die einen verkörpert Darwin ein wissenschaftlich aufgeklärtes Weltbild und die Überzeugung, Vorgänge in der Natur mit wissenschaftlichen Methoden erklären zu können - und nicht wie die Kreationisten mit Bibellektüre oder den Eingriffen eines Schöpfergottes. Für andere steht Darwin für eine neoliberale Ideologie, die besagt, dass stets der Stärkere siegt. Wie es zu diesen Einschätzungen gekommen ist, legt diese Einführung dar und stellt Darwins Hauptwerke in ihrem Entstehungskontext vor.

Charles Darwin zur Einführung

Contemporary theorists discuss the unique achievements and virtues of their favorite art writers This reader puts into conversation a diverse range of perspectives in art theory and history, with texts from the 18th century to the present. Editors Beate Söntgen and Julia Voss have invited art theorists from various backgrounds to discuss the art critics of their choice, choosing one example from their respective bodies of work to comment upon. How have these writers approached art criticism? What makes them extraordinary? What can we learn from their writings today? Among the contributors are: Beate Söntgen on Denis Diderot; Johannes Grave on Clemens Brentano; Julia Voss on Bertha Zuckerkandl; Monica Juneja on Ananda K. Commaraswamy; Stephanie Marchal on Julius Meier-Graefe; Margarethe Vörhringer on Alexander Rodchenko; Valerija Kuzema on Sergej Tretjakow; Malte Rauch on Georges Bataille; Isabelle Graw on Francis Ponge; Juli Carson on Oscar Masotta; Monique Bellan on Victor Hakim; Astrid Mania on Mary Josephon; Beatrice von Bismarck on Lawrence Alloway; Michael F. Zimmermann on Allan Sekula; Florencia Malbrán on Marta Traba; Sarah Wilson on Roland Barthes; Isabel Mehl on Lynne Tillmann; Anna Kipke on Claire Bishop; David Mielecke on Aruna D'Souza; and many more.

"Not only does Voss weave about these images a story on the development and presentation of Darwin's theory, she also addresses the history of Victorian illustration, the role of images in science, the technologies of production, and the relationship between specimen, words, and images."--Jacket.

Julia Voss

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