“Are you a creative person who is seeking to infuse your work with magic, divination, and ritual? Would you like to learn more about Shaker gift drawings and their connection to the rich legacy of channeled artworks? Are you curious about women mystics who changed the course of art history? Have you ever wondered what lies on the other side of the conscious veil when you get into a flow state?”
–Hilma’s Ghost, a feminist artist collective, consisting of internationally recognized artists Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray.
Join Hilma’s Ghost for a magic circle inside the American Folk Art Museum, site of the current exhibition Anything But Simple: Spirit Drawings and the Shaker Vision. Participants will do drawing and divination exercises using automatism, tarot, and other magic techniques that take us across the threshold of the seen to the unseen realm. Drawing inspiration from the Shaker works and techniques on view as well as Spiritualists, Dadaists and Surrealists, we will learn about the rich artistic tradition of feminism and spirituality including our namesake, Hilma af Klint, as well as many artists like Emma Kunz, Leonara Carrington, Ithell Colquhoun, and Ana Mendieta. The workshop will end with an ancestral closing.
The Dialogue + Studio Workshop series offers participants opportunities to gain insight into and engage with self-taught art, past and present, at a deep level. Focused discussions about select themes, techniques, and materials featured in current exhibitions are paired with related expert-led hands-on workshops.
About the Artists
Hilma’s Ghost 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.
Tickets and Location
This program will take place at the American Folk Art Museum, located at 2 Lincoln Square, New York City.
This program is open to artists and creatives at all levels of training and experience. It is limited to 18 individuals; advance registration is required.
Tickets are $15 / $12 members, students, artists, seniors;
Materials will be provided.
For questions or to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@folkartmuseum.org.
Images:
Left: Polly Jane Reed, A Present from Mother Lucy to Eliza Ann Taylor, New Lebanon, New York, 1849, Ink and watercolor on paper, 21 3/4 x 23 3/4 in. Miller Collection, Hancock Shaker Village, Massachusetts.
Right: Hilma’s Ghost, Have you noticed that what you are looking for is already right in front of you?, 2022, Gouache, watercolor, ink, and colored pencil on Fabriano Murillo paper, 39 x 27 in. Courtesy of the artists
Credits
This program is organized in partnership with Shaker Museum.
With more than 18,000 objects, Shaker Museum stewards the most comprehensive collection of Shaker material culture and archives. It is the leader nationwide among organizations devoted to Shaker history. Its permanent new facility in Chatham, NY, which is in development, was designed by Selldorf Architects. The museum also stewards the historic site in New Lebanon, NY, and will soon be moving its administrative offices, library, and archives to 29 Jones Ave. in Chatham. The museum’s collection can be viewed online at shakermuseum.us.