Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art

FAIN: GE-264617-19

Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Minneapolis, MN 55404-3506)
Robert Thomas Cozzolino (Project Director: August 2018 to November 2021)

Planning meetings, curatorial travel and research, and audience evaluation for developing an exhibition on the reflection of the supernatural in American art over the decades.

The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) seeks funding to support planning efforts to organize and present the touring exhibition “Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art,” the first museum exhibition and its related publication to explore the persistent presence of the supernatural and paranormal in American art. Curated by Robert Cozzolino, Ph.D., Patrick and Aimee Butler Curator of Paintings at Mia, this is an ambitious interdisciplinary project in which the humanities inform the selection of art and the presentation of the subject matter. American art history has barely scratched the surface of this topic, and Mia aspires for this to become the new standard study in the field. Through approximately 160 objects, the exhibition examine this topic broadly and deeply, relying on scholarship in parallel disciplines of anthropology, critical theory, film studies, history, literature, music, philosophy, religion, and sociology.