Group III, no 5, The Large Figure Paintings â€“ Art rug

Group III, no 5, The Large Figure Paintings, 2019, is a limited edition art rug by Asplund in collaboration with the Hilma af Klint foundation. The design is Hilma af Klint's Group III, no 5, The Large Figure Paintings, originally an oil on canvas painting by af Klint from 1907.

"The Temple Series Collection" (2019) is a collaboration between Asplund, the Hilma af Klint fundation, and CF Hill, where new rugs have been created out of six of the paintings from af Klint's The Paintings for the Temple.

The Paintings for the Temple are 193 paintings made between 1906 and 1915, which have become af Klint's central body of work. The overall idea with the series was to convey the knowledge of how all is one, beyond the visible dualistic world. The temple to which the title refers does not necessarily relate to an actual building but can rather be seen as a metaphor for spiritual evolution.

Hilma af Klint was born in Stockholm in 1862 and went on to study at the city’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, graduating with honors in 1887. She soon established herself as a respected painter in Stockholm. In her early career she also became deeply involved in spiritualism and Theosophy. These were modes of spiritual engagement that were widely popular across Europe and the United States—especially in literary and artistic circles—as people sought to reconcile long-held religious beliefs with scientific advances and a new awareness of the global plurality of religions. Af Klint’s The Paintings for the Temple, grew directly out of those belief systems.

Asplund developed a limited edition of hand-knotted rugs in collaboration with the Hilma af Klint Foundation. Their studio is located in the Indian carpet district of Mirzapur, which is famous for the skill of its craftspeople and its high standards in terms of workers’ conditions. The yarns, which consist of New Zealand wool and silk, have been dyed to match her characteristic shades: violet, warm red, pink, blue, and dark grey.

The art rug Group III, no 5, The Large Figure Paintings was generously donated to ºÚÁÏÍø Art Initiative by Lars Bane.

Photo: Bukowskis.

Produced between 1906 and 1915, the paintings were generated in part through af Klintâ€™s spiritualist practice as a medium and reflect an effort to articulate mystical views of reality. Stylistically, they are strikingly diverse, incorporating both biomorphic and geometric forms, expansive and intimate scales, and maximalist and reductivist approaches to composition and color. She imagined installing these works in a spiral temple, though this plan never came to fruition. In the years after she completed The Paintings for the Temple, af Klint continued to push the bounds of her new abstract vocabulary, as she experimented with form, theme, and seriality, creating some of her most incisive work.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum