Ghosts: Visualizing the Supernatural on the Kunstmuseum Basel

From 20 September 2025 to 1 February 2026, the Kunstmuseum Basel presents the exhibition “Ghosts: Visualizing the Supernatural”

Supply: Nationwide Gallery, London · Picture: François Gérard, “Ossian on the banks of the Lora summons the spirits to the sound of the harp,” 1811

Ghosts are all over the place: in fiction, well-liked tradition, and historic scientific inquiry. Whether or not pleasant or threatening, spooky or innocent, they’re an expression of a society’s need to grapple with the unknown and the ungraspable. For the greater than eighty artists from the nineteenth century to the current day featured within the exhibition, the need to discover the supernatural and the longing to render these elusive entities seen has been a eager supply of inspiration.

Ghosts hang-out all media: in classical portray or sculpture, in images, or as specters inside digital house. Artists have acted as mediums for spirits or, possessed by them, created works in accordance with their directions. Well-known ghosts from literature have been given uncanny kind and Surrealist visions have been made seen. This complete exhibition mines each the historical past of artwork and the paranormal, creating an exploration of the poetic potential and disquieting energy of ghostly apparitions.