As per The Guardian, af Klint is concerned that the other board members are not meeting their promises to safeguard his great-aunt’s wishes of her treasured work. “The fact the work is kept together is so unique, almost none of the work is lost,” he told the paper. “As a family, we do not believe that the work is meant to be commercialized, which has happened these last few years, and what we’re trying to do is bring it back to order.”
As of now, the foundation holds a majority of af Klint’s work— approximately 1,300 pieces. However, tensions between the artist’s family and the additional board members, appointed by the Administrative Court in Stockholm, seem to have been rising for some time now.
Last year, Erik filed a lawsuit accusing board members of seeking to profit from a handful of inadequately authorized deals, one in particular that offered replicas of the 193 works comprising “Paintings for the Temple” as NFTs on Pharrell William’s Web3 platform.
A correspondent for David Zwirner has responded, claiming “the family members are operating against the best interests of Hilma af Klint [...] this is a power struggle within the board— we have a standoff between the four board members and one board member who is trying to sabotage them.”