In the spring of 2013 Moderna museet in Stockholm held an exhibition with the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint. In her artistry af Klint was influenced by spiritism, theosophy and anthroposophy and while she lived she refused to show her abstract paintings, claiming that the world was not ready to understand their significance. Therefore, claims Moderna museet, af Klint never became a world-famous artist, even though her artistic achievements can be compared to the ones of Kandinsky and Mondrian.
In connection to the exhibition Moderna museet launched the campaign “Hilma af Klint – Help us update the history of art!” that aimed to make the artist known to the rest of the world. On the museum’s website af Klint was described as a pioneer within abstract art, and the visitor of the website was encouraged to spread knowledge about the artist using digital- and social media. The campaign made it possible for the museum to establish a dialogue with its visitors, and the initiative seems to have been much appreciated by the museum audience.
The name of the campaign implied that the visitors by participating were able to change the canon of modern art, even though their possibilities to do so actually were very limited in this case. In some respect the initiative shed light on how museums can expand the canon by including somewhat unknown artists as af Klint. However, by stressing that she was an abstract pioneer Moderna museet also pictured the modern art movement as a unified and chronological narrative, whose development was carried forward by a number of artistic masters. The Hilma af Klint-campaign is therefore not only an example on how museums can engage the audience but also on how their description of individual artists form the perception of art history.