Hilma af Klint at the Guggenheim

Last Sunday was spent at the Guggenheim—an idea that  I seemed to share with half of New York (likely the Fashion Week attendees who wanted to squeeze in a visit before jetting off to London)—so what I thought would be an hour of silence and solitude was actually one spent navigating flocks of black winter coats, with brief moments of observation squeezed between Excuse mes.

No matter. People-watching is half the fun, anyhow, especially when two of those people include Lily van der Woodsen (or Kelly Rutherford, after a quick Google) and beau. (Gossip Girl has been out of sight, out of mind for nearly a decade until I saw Rutherford. How things have changed in just a few years; remember when Serena, Blair, and select company were the inspiration behind every fashion blogger’s Polyvore back in the day?)

When I was able to make it through the crowds to read the fine, vinyl print, I skimmed just enough to understand the hullabaloo surrounding Hilma af Klint. To my untrained eye, Klint’s paintings seemed childlike—almost unrefined because of how abstract they were—but this was my own bias convoluting perception. I was (wrongly) comparing to what was familiar (the later works of Mondrian, Kadinsky, Picasso even), which was male, practiced, and likely the subconscious embodiment of ego with firmer strokes and bolder hues. Klint, however, was the true innovator before those we call the modernists, unafraid of embracing femininity, but also aware that the world was neither ready to receive nor understand her work.

—which is why she made it clear not to showcase her collection until two decades after her death.

Granted: I know little of art and even less about Klint, but a few glimpses at her work are enough to appreciate the timeliness of her exhibit. In an age where feminism is divisive and the idea of femininity polarizing, I can’t help but fall back on Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s Women Who Run With the Wolves (an easy example, only because her book has gained sudden relevance and best encapsulates the idea I’m trying to convey). In the pursuit of equality (tainted by capitalism, no less), women have been forced to, which morphed into a willingness to lean into masculinity in order to survive, thrive. This is a world where even architecture favors the male; how else are we to advance, except by adapting? Bending, not breaking? For centuries, femininity, sensuality, intuition, holistic healing have been persecuted for so long, and only now are they experiencing a resurgence. A response to overwhelm of toxic masculinity? Perhaps—I believe the universe has its way of rebalancing nature and energy? (Though, a caveat: Much of this revival can be attributed to cyclical consumerism of course; tech, big pharma etc. have exhausted the last few decades, and marketers now need something “new” for the buying powers to fixate on: enter, yoga, mushrooms, tarot, etc., now made mainstream.)

The point is, I’m ready to reclaim what is intrinsically mine—sensuality, femininity, intuition—having spent the last few years trying to erase it. And before me is a formidable spiral of one woman’s unapologetic dive into spiritualism: earnest, complex, full of beautiful pastels and burnt orange. Bold, but unobtrusive.

Innovative, feminine, original.

The first way to be.

.   .   .

xx