This catalogue accompanied The Disembodied Spirit Exhibition presented at Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Art and the Austin Museum of Art.This exhibition was a unique interdisciplinary exploration of art and culture in the late nineteenth century and the late twentieth century involving the depiction or suggestion of ghosts. This major exhibition examines the social and cultural circumstances in which ghosts entered public discourse while considering as well the manner and media through which the ghostly has been rendered in images. The Disembodied Spirit observes how artists have represented absence while still indicating presence-using formal elements such as transparency, light, shadows, and weightlessness-and their manipulation, alteration, and exaggeration of these characteristics.  The exhibition and accompanying catalogue essays examine cultural phenomena, such as Spiritualism in the late nineteenth century, as well as the contemporary fixation with cyberspace, virtual reality, and the less techno-hip phenomenon of angels. Included are works by nineteenth-century photographers such as William Mumler, Georgiana Houghton, Julia Margaret Cameron and contemporary artists such as Jeremy Blake, Nancy Burson, Gregory Crewdson, Anna Gaskell, Ann Hamilton, Glenn Ligon, Tracey Moffatt, Mariko Mori, and Bill Viola.

The disembodied spirit

Arts & Photography

Alison Ferris

Tom Gunning

Pamela Thurschwell

Photography & Video

Bowdoin College Museum of Art

This catalogue examines the ways in which 26 contemporary American artists draw from, expand upon, and critique popular notions of hair. Artists whose works are included are Liz Larner and Millie Wilson, Jeanne Dunning, James Garrett Faulkner, Tom Freidman, and Anne Wilson, Adrian Piper, Nicolette Brunklaus, Jennie Nichols, and Janine Antoni, Ava Gerber, Robert Gober, Jane Hammond, David Humphrey, Kim Lee Kahn, Robin Kahn, Katharine Kreisher, Patty Martori, Curtis Mitchell, Andres Serrano, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, Chrysanne Stathacos, Danny Tisdale, Maciej Toporowicz, and Lynne Yamamoto. Essay by Alison Ferris.

Hair

John Michael Kohler Arts Center

Chapel Hill-based Patrick Dougherty is known for his enchanting, site-specific sculptural installations composed of huge, hanging, nestlike forms. This volume documents several exhibitions, highlighting the collaborative process of creating major installations, and the eventual, natural demise of Dougherty's unique sculptures.

Patrick Dougherty: Natural Magic (JOHN MICHAEL KO)

Patrick Dougherty

Linda Muehlig

Individual Artists

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Books by Alison Ferris