Erik af Klint is the chairman of the Hilma af Klint Foundation, which owns and manages the Swedish world-renowned artist's approximately 1,300 paintings. When they are exhibited, they are a crowd magnet, but Erik af Klint wants to see an end to this.
In an interview with Dagens Nyheter, he claims that the foundation's statutes state that the paintings are only to be shown to "those seeking spiritual knowledge", which means they cannot be shown to just anyone. Instead, he wants them to be housed in a temple, only accessible to believers.
When a religion ends up in a museum, then it is dead. This is not meant to be public. Exhibitions, books, images, carpets, socks – none of that is allowed, he says to the newspaper.
That Hilma af Klint's art has already reached the general public, he believes, is a breach of the statutes, and in his application to the Stockholm District Court, he wants all board members, except for himself, to resign.
The foundation has long struggled with internal conflicts. According to the statutes, a majority of the board must consist of members of the Anthroposophical Society. One of the conflicts concerns the fact that the four anthroposophers currently on the board want Hilma af Klint's paintings to be sold, something Erik af Klint opposes.
