What scent do ghosts carry? Should we be afraid of them? Do they speak in words or only in wails and occasional shrieks? These intriguing questions form the foundation of "Ghosts: Visualizing the Supernatural," a captivating and consistently curious exhibition at Kunstmuseum Basel that examines our deep obsession with spirits trapped between worlds and reveals how artists, pseudoscientists, con artists, and enthusiasts have imagined them over the past two and a half centuries.
Ghosts have evolved from being merely creepy supporting characters in fireside stories to taking center stage in popular culture. The exhibition opens with a montage of clips from cinematic thrillers, ranging from the slime-spewing wraiths of "Ghostbusters" to the restless phantoms of the Spanish Civil War in "The Devil's Backbone." European filmmakers have shown particular fondness for apparitions and supernatural manifestations, with 2023's "All of Us Strangers" recently blending a ghost story with a London-set gay love story. These examples demonstrate how ghosts have become flexible narrative tools in modern storytelling.
However, as this Swiss exhibition clearly illustrates, spirits have always possessed fluid identities throughout history. "There are many varying ghost traditions in the world, and we specifically chose to focus on the western hemisphere in the past 250 years," explains Eva Reifert, Kunstmuseum's curator of 19th century and modern art, who has orchestrated this comprehensive deep dive into the spirit world. "You could do ghost exhibitions in other parts of the world and get very different ghosts haunting the halls."
During the 19th century, the focus was firmly placed on documentary evidence and scientific proof. Victorians were absolutely fascinated by ghosts, but they also demanded concrete evidence of their existence. Psychic studies soon began colliding with traditional science, emerging theories in psychology, and new technologies such as photography and sound recording. In the following century, however, artistic interpretations of ghosts gradually came to the forefront of supernatural exploration.
While ghosts are often depicted as troubling presences—the famous 1936 photograph of the Brown Lady on the staircase at Raynham Hall in Norfolk still brings chills to viewers today—they can also provide comfort to the living. A large collection of spirit photographs from the 1920s features formal portraits in which ghosts of loved ones appear alongside the living sitter, illustrating our deep desire to reconnect with the deceased. These fraudulent photographs, frequently debunked by Harry Houdini who saw these spirit illusionists as professional competition, offered consolation to grieving families for a fee.
Reifert has carefully gathered together more than 160 works spanning a wide variety of media for this comprehensive exhibition. Ghosts are captured in paintings, prints, snapshots, film, sculpture, textiles, light works, and conceptual installations. The collection includes literary ghosts, featuring illustrations of Hamlet's father and Marley's ghost from Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol," as well as works by modern masters including Paul Klee, Max Ernst, and Marcel Duchamp. The exhibition also showcases bizarre objects, such as a ghost-hunting kit owned by English paranormal investigator Eric Dingwall, complete with luminous pins designed to seize supernatural prey, and a kitchen knife once owned by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung that supposedly shattered into pieces due to poltergeist activity.
Reifert has brought the galleries to life with several large-scale installations and interactive interventions. "We wanted real fog, but our conservators said no," she notes with a touch of humor. In the opening space, audiences literally merge with spooks as they encounter a "pepper's ghost"—a theatrical technique involving figures reflected on a sheet of plate glass, a device created by Victorian scientist John Henry Pepper. Further into the exhibition, Emily Dickinson's poem "One Need Not Be a Chamber—to Be Haunted" can be heard softly whispered through hidden speakers, and entire rooms are filled by deconstructed ghost houses created by renowned artists Rachel Whiteread and Cornelia Parker. The final gallery quite literally delivers a spine-tingling shiver to visitors.
In researching this extensive exhibition, Reifert has drawn upon the expertise of two leading specialists in the field: Andreas Fischer, a German expert in spirit photography at the remarkably X-Files-sounding Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, and British scholar Susan Owens, author of "The Ghost: A Cultural History." Walking through the galleries, Owens shares that her favorite ghost story comes from an account of an otherworldly event recorded in John Aubrey's late 17th-century volume "Miscellanies." "Anno 1670, not far from Cirencester, was an apparition," writes Aubrey. "Being demanded whether [it was] a good spirit, or a bad? returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume and most melodious twang."
Owens loves this particular story because it is both mysterious and somewhat absurd, like many of the best ghost tales throughout history. Indeed, a surrealist thread runs throughout the entire show—a René Magritte painting from 1928 pictures a comical spirit shaped like a paper cutout, while Angela Deane paints whimsical ghosts onto found photographs. This playful element continues into the museum's gift shop, where visitors can purchase specially commissioned ghost scents created by Heretic Parfum. The fragrance set features fascinating notes of black water lotus, oak moss, the hint of a candle just extinguished, a forest at night, and a room bearing the trace of its past life, according to British scent specialist Tasha Marks.
While remaining invisible in mirrors, ghosts clearly reflect the times and societies in which they appear. Victorian and Edwardian specters often carried sexual undertones and repressed desires. In John Everett Millais's 1895 painting "Speak! Speak!," a young man is disturbed in bed by an apparition of a beautiful woman, and he looks as if he's never seen a woman before, let alone encountered a ghost. Then there are the photographs of ectoplasm, supposedly emerging white and gloopy from the orifices of female mediums during séances—images that Freud would have found fascinating from a psychological perspective.
More serious contemporary concerns emerge in Willie Doherty's 2007 video piece "Ghost Story," which eerily addresses victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. A persistent dread of child mortality also lingers throughout the exhibition. The small, sad sculptural figures of juvenile ghosts by contemporary artists Tony Oursler and Ryan Gander are profoundly unnerving, managing to be simultaneously cute and tragic in their representation of lost innocence.
Contemporary interest in the spirit world represents part of a complex cocktail of modern anxieties: everyday life in the 21st century feels increasingly precarious, the security of religious faith has faded for many, the climate crisis means that weather cannot be forecast with the same accuracy as before, and rapidly advancing technology has fundamentally redefined our understanding of intelligence and consciousness. Ghosts allow us to consider our shifting foundations, both social and existential. "Curating the exhibition was disorienting," acknowledges Reifert honestly. "My worldview has had a sort of update to be more accepting of the irrational."
Kunstmuseum Basel has produced a spectacular blockbuster exhibition that conjures up a host of questions—intellectual, spiritual, philosophical, and artistic—while retaining huge popular appeal for visitors of all backgrounds. The exhibition would travel well to other institutions, but of course, as the saying goes, ghosts seldom move on from their chosen haunts. "Ghosts: Visualizing the Supernatural" runs at Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland, from September 20, 2025, through March 8, 2026.
