“Ghosts” is an ambitious show that invites visitors into a world of apparitions, uncertainty, and things that linger between life and death. With over 160 works spanning the last 250 years, the exhibition curated by Eva Reifert explores how ghosts and the supernatural have been imagined in Western art, from classic paintings and spirit photography to installations and contemporary art. The exhibition runs until 8 March 2026 at the Neubau of the Kunstmuseum Basel.
Statelet Bulfond, Spirit Photography, 1921, Collection of The College of Psychic Studies, London. Photo: The College of Psychic Studies, London.
The show is organized into thematic rooms, each offering a different angle on the spectral. Early on, there are pieces that highlight illusion, atmosphere, and the uncanny: drapery, flickering lights, fog, the theatrical reflections of “Pepper’s Ghost” illusions, all playing with what it means to see something and yet not truly believe it. Room by room, the exhibition moves through ghosts in literature, spirit photography, mediums and séances, and then into more psychological territory, ghosts as symbols of memory, trauma, and the unconscious.
Erwin Wurn, Yikes (Substitutes) 2024, Courtesy of the Artist and König Galerie, © 2025, ProLitteris, Zürich. Photo: Markus Gradwohl
One of the fascinating tensions in the exhibition is between belief and skepticism. The nineteenth century in particular emerges as a key moment: scientific advances, but also a persistent fascination with mystical and spiritual practices. Ghost photographs, mediumistic art, and the mass appeal of spiritualism show how many people in that period were trying to reconcile what could be measured with what could not.
Tony Oursier, Fantasmino, 2017, collection of Tony Oursier, Image courtesy of Tony Oursier, photo by Andrea Guermani
In more recent work, the show doesn’t shy away from the ways ghosts can be political, intimate, or deeply emotional. Some artists use spectral imagery to evoke historical violence or collective memory, others to express personal loss, or the tension between what’s visible and what’s hidden. There are also experiments in form: installations, multimedia works, and conceptual pieces that force you not only to look, but to listen, to feel, and to question what “presence” means.
Mike Kelley, Ectoplasm Photography 10 (1/15), 1978 / 2009, Courtesy of Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, © Estate of the artist
Overall, “Ghosts” is more than an exhibition of spooky or gothic art. It’s a reflection on how we, humans, constantly try to grasp the ungraspable. It asks: What do our ghosts tell us about ourselves about fear, hope, belief, mortality, memory? It does this with both seriousness and whimsy. If you enjoy being unsettled in a thoughtful way, by art that lingers in the mind after you’ve left the gallery, this is one to catch.
More information HERE.
