Hilma’s Ghost Discusses Their Feminist Homage to the Guggenheim’s Legacy

Earlier this month, the feminist art collective Hilma’s Ghost hosted a unique series of feminist activations paying tribute to the Guggenheim’s iconic architecture and deeply woven foundation. The one time event, titled Chromatic Altar, engaged with spiritualist and feminist history at the museum, reflecting the legacy of its co-founder and first director, Hilla Rebay.

Upon opening in 1959 by the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright, many contemporary artists initially opposed the Guggenheim’s unconventional, top-heavy spiraling structure. Once criticized for breaking long-standing architectural norms, the building is now celebrated for those same qualities—further illuminated by Chromatic Altar, a love letter to its modernist form. Choreographed by Amy Larimer and performed by former and current students from Lehman College, City University of New York, Chromatic Altar featured 18 dancers adorned in black clothing with colored scarves—symbolic vessels enhancing the museum’s structure.

Beyond honoring the Guggenheim, the activation also paid tribute to Swedish mystic Hilma af Klint, celebrating her groundbreaking 2018 exhibition, Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, which remains the museum’s biggest blockbuster show by ticket sales.

In the first segment of the activation, dancers wove and whirled around the building’s geometric design, their gestures evoking witchcraft and mysticism, alluding to the museum’s complex history. The second segment transformed the Guggenheim’s interior, with dancers descending from colorful fabrics draped along the inner walls—a striking, hundred-foot cascade of color. The evening concluded with a somatic color meditation under the oculus, where Sharmistha Ray and Dannielle Tegeder invited guests to participate in a practice fostering unity in dark times.

Through movement, color, and collective ritual, Chromatic Altar reimagined the Guggenheim as both a historical site and a living space for contemporary feminist expression. By weaving past and present, the event underscored the ongoing dialogue between art, architecture, and activism, leaving a lasting impression on all who experienced its transformative power.

art currently caught up with Hilma’s Ghost on this special activation…

How does it feel to return to the museum with this special activation following a blockbuster show in 2018; and how did it inform this one (if so)?

Hilma af Klint had envisioned a temple for her work, which is why the Guggenheim was such a perfect venue for a major public appraisal for her work – and that show in 2018 defied all expectations for a major museum exhibition of a woman artist’s work by becoming the most attended exhibition in the museum’s history. It also reset the timeline for abstraction in art history. Turns out, it was Hilma, not Kandinsky, who was the first abstract artist in the Western Modernist paradigm! That show was a watershed moment—not just for art history, but for us personally. Returning to the museum as a namesake feminist collective with this special activation felt incredibly meaningful. We created a chromatic altar in the space, weaving together feminist legacies, the history of spiritual abstraction, and our own practices as abstract painters by transforming the space through analog color using hundreds of feet of colored fabric. It was an incredible moment to reconnect with Hilma’s legacy, which remains a guiding force in our ongoing collaboration in the realm of art, spirituality, and feminist histories.

Could you tell us more about the idea behind activating the Guggenheim into an abstract painting through dance and material? What was the inspo?

We were invited by the Guggenheim to create a special activation in response to Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930. We decided to draw inspiration from the core tenets of Orphism, which focus on color, light, movement, and music. Orphism sought to liberate painting from strict representation, embracing pure abstraction as a way to evoke rhythm, harmony, and spiritual energy. With this in mind, we envisioned transforming the Guggenheim into a living, abstract painting through dance, textiles, and sound.

As a feminist artist collective, we were particularly focused on highlighting the contributions of the women featured in the exhibition including Mainie Jellett, Sonia Delaunay, and Natalia Goncharova. This activation was a way to weave together mystical feminist strands—acknowledging the legacy of these women while engaging with the museum’s own feminist foundations, including the influence of Hilla Rebay. We were particularly interested in her commitment to the exploration of the metaphysical, and wanted to honor her legacy by creating a performance that did just that.

We collaborated with Amy Larimer and 18 current and former student dancers from Lehman College at City University of New York to physically activate the space through movement inspired by weaving—an action rooted in both domestic labor and the practices of witchcraft and magic. The dancers’ gestures became a form of visual and emotional storytelling, transforming the museum into a meditative, immersive environment. We wanted to create a space of spiritual upliftment and a moment of solidarity and reflection in challenging times. This activation was not just about abstraction but about connection, intersectionality, and collective energy, a reminder of the power of art to hold and support vulnerable communities when they need it most.

bit of a fun one: What would you say to her if Hilla Rebay was still alive? And do you think she'd participate in the knotting, weaving, etc?

She would absolutely be down! Hilla Rebay was so ahead of her time, just like Hilma af Klint and the women artists in the Harmony and Dissonance show. They all broke with restrictive gender conventions in their times and used their visionary power to create radical and inspirational art. Hilla Rebay would have recognized the ways in which these gestures hold deep creative and mystical power, especially for women.