Ghosts: Tracing the Supernatural explores the rich visual culture that has grown around these ‘beings of the in-between’ in the Western world since the 19th century, fuelled by the convergence of science, spiritualism and popular media. It accompanies the exhibition of the same name at the Kunstmuseum Basel, running from September 2025 to March 2026.
Ghosts are everywhere – in popular culture, from Hollywood blockbusters such as Ghostbusters (1984) to indie films such as All of Us Strangers (2023). They haunt screens, stages, and pages, inhabiting literature, folklore and myth as restless spirits that refuse to leave us alone. Throughout history, they have also haunted art. As beings of the in-between, ghosts bridge worlds – life and death, horror and humour, good and evil, the visible and the invisible – making every attempt to represent, record or communicate with them both a cognitive challenge and an emotional experience.
Ghosts: Tracing the Supernatural is dedicated to these mysterious entities, featuring over 160 works and objects created over the past 250 years.
Christoph Merian, 140pp, 21cm x 30cm, illustrated paperback, English/German text, 2025
