Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art has reached its final resting place at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, where it will remain until May 15, 2022. While the exhibition’s tour may be drawing to a close, its phantasmal and otherworldly showcase has haunted visitors in Toledo, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky, along the way. I was lucky enough to see the exhibit in early December of 2021 while it was in Louisville at the Speed Art Museum housed on the University of Louisville’s campus, and was thoroughly impressed by the exhibit overall.
According to the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s website, Supernatural America provides an in-depth artistic interrogation of the “ghosts from our history [that] are an inescapable and unsettled part of daily life” and are not to be relegated to fiction, but are instead “present and tangible, urgently calling for contact” and are deeply ingrained in our nation’s identity. America’s bloody past of war, slavery, genocide, and racial tension has served as inspiration to artists for hundreds of years and continues to possess their minds and mediums today. The exhibit showcases approximately 125 objects from the early nineteenth century to the present, and includes a diverse collection, consisting of paintings, drawings, photographs, textiles, jewelry, journals, examples of automatic—or spirit—writing, “root working” tools, sculptures, furniture, paranormal paraphernalia, and many other artifacts that explore artistic interpretations of the afterlife, spiritualism, the specter of America’s past, and the human experience overall. While there are many physical pieces in the exhibit, it also incorporates a striking multi-modal experience. By using a quiet—yet haunting—soundtrack, as well as visual clips, projections of ghostly imagery, and even short-form film, the exhibit provides an experience that engages several senses and creates a feeling of unease (in a good way, as strange as that is) that follows visitors from beginning to end.
Upon entering the main exhibit, visitors are immediately greeted by a sign that provides QR codes that, for those with smartphones, lead them to the Speed’s four Spotify playlists that were designed to complement the exhibits throughout. While the use of multimedia and technology as part of an exhibit is not anything new per se, the exhibit’s use of Spotify, a well-known and popular music streaming service with social aspects, as well as the museum’s encouragement of photography and its sharing on social media, signaled to me that an important, and positive, curatorial decision was made that harnesses the power of the social aspects of the internet and digital platforms as a means of expanding both promotion of, and access to, cultural heritage. This incorporation and encouragement of technological use by patrons is incredibly important in museum work today, and seeing this as a part of Supernatural America made me happy as both a folklorist and a visitor to the museum.
The physical design of the exhibit’s space provided an organic flow through each display while also providing room for people to stop and take in individual installations without inhibiting others from moving about the exhibit. The strategic layout and placement of each installation also never allowed for one medium to become overly present, as jewelry, photos, journals, and other paraphernalia were housed in display cases hung alongside paintings and photographs on the walls, while the open floor space featured cases displaying sculptures of various sizes, metal work, ornate Ouija boards and planchettes, and other three-dimensional works of art. Because the exhibit was laid out in this way, visitors never really know what type of work is coming next, creating a sense of the unexpected that, when coupled with the ethereal music and lighting, establishes an otherworldly feeling that only adds to the experience.
My only real critique of the exhibit’s design is the splitting of it into two floors—which is more a critique of the museum than the exhibit itself. Normally, this would not have been an issue but, at the time, the Speed Art Museum was also hosting two other exhibits, Wolfgang Buttress: Blossom and Ralph Eugene Meatyard’s The Unforeseen Wilderness, which were displayed at the end of first floor of the Supernatural America exhibit with no clear demarcation between exhibits. While both of these other exhibits are beautiful and enthralling, due to the almost sublime qualities of the landscape photography of The Unforeseen Wilderness and the mixed media display of Wolfgang Buttress: Blossom, which relied on darkness and the use of light, all three exhibits kind of bled together. It was not until leaving the museum and looking at the museum’s printed map, given to me by the docents, that I realized that I had been through more than one exhibit. Although the three exhibits worked well together and did not distract from the ghostly nature of Supernatural America, I do feel this blending did not allow for the other exhibits to stand on their own.
From Rachel Rose’s short-form film, Wil-o-Wisp (2018), that centers on a female character’s experiences as a woman persecuted by society for her ties to the spirit world, Walter McEwan’s painting depicting the communal thrills of oral narratives of the supernatural in The Ghost Story (1887), Alison Saar’s Cotton Demon (1993) that explores the relationship between agricultural spirits and enslaved Africans with the American landscape, all the way to the more experimental representation of humanity’s temporality and connection to the universe in Tony Oursler’s Dust (2006), Supernatural America is rife with cultural heritage belonging to the diverse groups that built America. Although the exhibition’s time on display is coming to an end, folklorists, anthropologists, and history buffs alike will find tremendous value in exploring this exhibit for years to come through the permanence of the exhibit’s catalogue. Within those pages, the liminal nature of the physical exhibit will be preserved as a representation not only of the showcase but also of the relationship between the supernatural and America’s past, present, and future.
Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art is on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Art from February 19 to May 15, 2022. The exhibition catalogue can be purchased at the exhibit, online via The Store at Mia (Minneapolis Institute of Art), or on Amazon.com.
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[Review length: 1017 words • Review posted on April 22, 2022]