Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art at Minneapolis Institute of Art

Exhibition : February 19–May 15, 2022
painting of abstract faces on a bright-colored color-field background

America is haunted. Ghosts from our history are an inescapable and unsettled part of daily life. Not merely the realm of metaphor but present and tangible, urgently calling for contact, these otherworldly visitors have been central to our national identity. They populate our literature, our entertainment, and our art. Through times of mourning and trauma, artists have been integral to visualizing ghosts, whether national or personal, and in doing so have embraced the mysterious and the inexplicable. This exhibition explores the numerous ways that artists in the United States have made sense of their own experiences of the paranormal and the supernatural, developing a rich visual culture of the intangible.

Water Light / Water Needle (Lake Mah Wah, NJ) (film), 1966
Four Fur Cutting Boards, 1962
Meat Joy, 1964
Meat Joy, 1964