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.
Edited by:
Robert Cozzolino
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 279mm,
Width: 235mm,
ISBN: 9780226786827
ISBN 10: 022678682X
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 03 August 2021
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
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
Robert Cozzolino is the Patrick and Aimee Butler Curator of Paintings at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Reviews for Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art
"""This exhibition catalogue covers more than 200 years of visualisations of paranormal phenomena and otherworldly contact, demonstrating a search for healing from the country's violent past by embracing the uncanny.""-- ""The Bookseller"""
