About this Event
Shaker gift drawings are mysterious. On view in the exhibition Anything but Simple: Gift Drawings and the Shaker Aesthetic, these divinely inspired artifacts testify the vibrant and complex vision of the women who made them.
In her book The Other Side: A Journey Into Women, Art and the Spirit World, Jennifer Higgie investigates the artistic innovations of women who engaged with the occult. Influenced by the practice of Swedish-born abstract artist and mystic Hilma af Klint, Hilma’s Ghost, a feminist art collective, reckons with patriarchal art histories through the lens of feminism and spirituality.
In this program, art historian Jennifer Higgie and the Brooklyn-based Hilma’s Ghost will present and discuss their research on women’s artistic and spiritual practices, offering a unique perspective on the gift drawings which were made during the Shaker revival known as the era of Manifestations from 1837 to the mid-1850s. The practice of Shaker women will serve as a springboard to revisit the canon of European and American abstraction, with a focus on feminist and spiritual discourse.
About the speakers
Jennifer Higgie is an Australian writer and former editor and staff writer of frieze magazine who lives in London. Her recent books include and . She is also the author of the novel Bedlam; author and illustrator of the children’s book There’s Not One; and editor of The Artist’s Joke. In 2023, Jennifer was guest curator of the exhibition Thin Skin at Monash University Art Museum, Melbourne. Jennifer is also the editor of the National Gallery of Australia’s new publication The Annual and host of its podcast, Artist’s Artists.
is a feminist artist collective co-founded by artists and educators Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray that fuses contemporary art with modern spirituality through forms of divination and ritual. Named after the Swedish artist and mystic, Hilma af Klint, the collective's work is a critique of gendered power structures, providing a critical and revolutionary platform for rethinking gender in the arts while recovering feminist histories as its ballast for critique. The collective acts as a collaborative model for feminist research, artistic production, enchanted pedagogies, and community. Their work ranges from the traditional to the esoteric, including paintings and drawings, surrealist games, a tarot deck, ritual object-based installations, pedagogical workshops, curated exhibitions, community projects, and books. In the 4+years of their collective’s existence, they have completed more than 20 collaborative projects and participated in 50 public programs both nationally and internationally. In 2022, the duo began an itinerant art school with generative workshops fusing art and magic that have been attended by over 1K people. Their limited edition tarot deck, Abstract Futures Tarot, has a popular following in the art world. Hilma’s Ghost has been featured in solo and group exhibitions and projects internationally at Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Galería RGR, Mexico City, Mexico; Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT; Secrist | Beach, Chicago, IL; The Parallax Center, Portland, OR; The Armory Show, New York, NY; among many others. Reviews of their work have appeared in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Artnet, and Hyperallergic.
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Images:
Left: William F. Winter, Untitled, New Lebanon, New York, c. 1923–1930, printed later from the original negative. Gelatin silver print, 15 1/2 x 11 1/2 in. New York State Museum, Albany; right: Hannah Cohoon, A Bower of Mulberry Trees, Hancock, Massachusetts, 1854, Ink and watercolor on paper, 27 1/16 x 31 11/16 in. Andrews Collection, Hancock Shaker Village, Massachusetts;
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Registration
Space is limited; advance registration is required. Please consider making a donation when you register to support ongoing virtual programming.
Instructions for joining with a Zoom link and password will be provided by email upon registration confirmation under “Additional Information.” Closed captioning will be provided in English. For questions or to request accessibility accommodations, please email [email protected].
Event Venue
Online
USD 0.00
