World Receivers: Female Pioneers of Abstract Art at Lenbachhaus Munich

The exhibition 'World Receivers' at Lenbachhaus in Munich (through March 10, 2019) reexamines the origins of abstract art, challenging the traditional attribution to Wassily Kandinsky by highlighting three female pioneers: Georgiana Houghton, Hilma af Klint, and Emma Kunz. These artists developed abstract styles independently, rooted in spiritualism and esotericism, decades before the Blaue Reiter. Houghton, a London spiritualist, created trance-induced drawings that anticipated Surrealist automatism; her works were rediscovered at Monash University in Melbourne. Af Klint, a Swedish anthroposophist, produced non-objective paintings as early as 1906, predating Kandinsky. Kunz, a Swiss healer, used pendulum oscillations on graph paper to generate geometric abstractions based on cosmic energy. The show positions their work as a feminist and humanistic response to the moral crises of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, emphasizing a shared mission of peace and harmony.