The Kunstmuseum Basel is getting into the Halloween spirit early with this display of objects from the last 250 years that relate to the spirit world (20 September–8 March 2026). Even as rationalism and empiricism pervaded the 19th century, ghosts grew ever more prevalent in visual culture: photography, for instance, seemed to capture all manner of spectral apparitions despite its remit to record reality. Romantic artists, rejecting neoclassical order and the scientific tendency to explain, painted ghosts and ghouls in the pursuit of sheer spectacle; in later decades, theatrical impresarios revelled in technologies of projection that seemed to conjure spectres out of thin air. Highlights in Basel include vivid, intricate ‘spirit drawings’ by Georgiana Houghton; a photograph from 1912 of a medium with a luminous string of ectoplasm apparently stretching from hand to hand; and playful sculptures by Meret Oppenheim and Erwin Wurm.
Find out more from the Kunstmuseum’s website.
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