Full Description
America is haunted. Ghosts from its violent history—the genocide of Indigenous peoples, slavery, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and traumatic wars—are an inescapable and unsettled part of the nation's heritage. Not merely in the realm of metaphor but present and tangible, urgently calling for contact, these otherworldly visitors have been central to our national identity. Through times of mourning and trauma, artists have been integral to visualizing ghosts, whether national or personal, and in doing so have embraced the uncanny and the inexplicable. This stunning catalog, accompanying the first major exhibition to assess the spectral in American art, explores the numerous ways American artists have made sense of their own experiences of the paranormal and the supernatural, developing a rich visual culture of the intangible.
Featuring artists from James McNeill Whistler and Kerry James Marshall to artist/mediums who made images with spirits during séances, this catalog covers more than two hundred years of the supernatural in American art. Here we find works that explore haunting, UFO sightings, and a broad range of experiential responses to other worldly contact.
Contents
Director's Foreword / Katherine C. Luber
INTRODUCTION: AMERICA IS HAUNTED / Robert Cozzolino
DESTINIES MANIFEST / John Jota Leaños
Hauntology / María del Pilar Blanco
UNCANNY SPACES / Sarah Burns
Phantasmagoria / Wendy Bellion
"THINGS NOT TANGIBLE": PORTRAITS, SITTERS, AND THE SUPERNATURAL / Rachael Z. DeLue
Ghosts in the Machines / Brandon Hodge
HOW TO PAINT A GHOST AROUND 1900 / Adam M. Thomas
THESE UNSEEN BEINGS / Robert Cozzolino
Dust / Tony Oursler
Magic's Deconstruction of Art, Science, and Religion / George P. Hansen
WILSON BENTLEY'S ARMY OF SOULS / Alexander Nemerov
Bringing the Invisible to Light: Aura and Psychic Photography / Michelle Donnelly
BLACK BLACK MAGIC / Bridget R. Cooks
The Rootworker's Worktable / Renée Stout
Contemporary Witch Culture / Lacey Prpić Hedtke
GODDESS, BODY, AND EARTH: FEMINIST SPIRITS IN THE 1970S / Rachel Middleman
Popular Culture and the Paranormal/Supernatural / Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
Plates
Selected Bibliography
Appendix: Octopus Series
Exhibition Checklist
Contributors
Curator's Acknowledgments
Lenders to the Exhibition
Photography Credits
