Ghost Show

THE MET HIGHLIGHTS PHOTOGRAPHY'S DARK SIDE

Is it magic or manipulation, paranormal phenomena or phooey? "The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult," which opens at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art later this month, presents images from the 1860s to World War II, an otherworldly illustration of the intersection of photography, spiritualism, and technology. The chemical magic of the darkroom collides with the New Age era, delivering images of auras and ectoplasm, and raising questions about photography's relationship to the truth. Divided into three sections, the exhibition begins with the Spiritualist movement, which began in the 1850s and embraced the idea that the dead are able to contact the living. The "vital forces" section depicts thoughts, feelings, and dreams—often using a photographic plate without a camera. "In the mid-19th century, photographers were associated with magic or alchemy—creating mysterious images that had never been seen before," says Mia Fineman, research associate at the museum. "At the beginning, people didn't know what photography could and couldn't depict." With the perfect combination of chemistry and hocus-pocus, the final section focuses on seances, experiments with telekinesis, levitation, and the production of ectoplasm. "Whether they are genuine or fabricated records of phenomena," says Pierre Apraxine, the exhibition's head curator, "these images disturb."

A. M. HOMES

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