“Everybody in Mesopotamia, as far as I understand it, believed in ghosts,” said Irving Finkel, a curator of the British Museum’s Middle Eastern department.
ghosts
Posted inArt
In Paris, an Omnivorous Asian Phantasmagoria
This sprawling show at the Musée du quai Branly encompasses a wealth of sepulchral, shrouded spirits meandering through Asia’s cultural purview.
Posted inBooks
How Ghosts Became Transparent, and Other Spectral Evolutions
The Ghost: A Cultural History by Susan Owens explores the evolution of the ghost in British art and literature, from Hamlet’s father to Marley’s ghost.
Posted inBooks
A Photographer’s 16-Year Project to Capture the Contemporary Séance
Shannon Taggart started photographing the mediums of Lily Dale in 2001, and for 16 years after has documented the séances and practices of modern Spiritualism.
Posted inArt
Machines Triggered by the Ghost of Thomas Eakins
Artist Fernando Orellana is summoning the ghost of Thomas Eakins to Philadelphia through art machines and nude models.
Posted inArt
A History of Photographing Ghosts
In 1860, William H. Mumler set up the first photography studio that claimed to capture the dead, and his success started a movement of spirit images.
Posted inArt
Goblins, Ghosts, and Ghouls in Japanese Prints
If you want to hear a terrifying ghost story this Halloween, look to Japan.
Posted inArt
Recreating a Victorian Funeral in Photos
There were no photographs taken of the 1865 funeral of New Yorker Seabury Tredwell, but there could have been. Artist Hal Hirshorn has imagined what this Victorian era funeral would have looked like through the photographic techniques of the day, namely salt prints.
Posted inArt
Art for Ghosts
Artist Fernando Orellana is making work for a very specific audience: the recently departed. His current project, Shadows, consists of interactive works designed for posthumous use. Inspired by paranormal research, spiritualism and ghost folklore, Orellana’s machines continuously search for the dead, attempting to allow the departed a chance to interact with the world they left.
