What happens when perception itself becomes unstable? In Extrasensory, her first institutional exhibition in Switzerland, New York–based artist Chloe Wise invites audiences into a world where belief, imagery and sensory experience continuously overlap. Presented at Kulturstiftung Basel H. Geiger (KBH.G) in Basel and curated by Samuel Leuenberger, the exhibition marks Wise’s most ambitious moving-image project to date, unfolding as a large-scale immersive installation. The show remains on view until 6th September 2026.

Throughout her practice, Wise has explored the ways contemporary culture manufactures desire, identity and authenticity. From hyperreal paintings to satirical interventions into consumer culture, her work has consistently questioned the visual systems that shape everyday experience. Extrasensory expands this investigation by shifting its focus from representation to perception itself, asking how reality is filtered through language and memory and inherited belief systems.

At the centre of the exhibition is a multichannel video installation that surrounds visitors with a constellation of monumental screens. Across these shifting cinematic environments, seven archetypal figures emerge, each occupying a space somewhere between the mystical and the familiar. Echoing the iconography of Wise’s paintings while drawing inspiration from the visual language of late twentieth-century film and television, these characters become vessels through which questions of faith, ideology are examined.

Rather than offering definitive narratives, Extrasensory embraces ambiguity. Angels, supernatural entities and technological apparitions appear not as fixed symbols but as unstable constructions whose meanings remain deliberately unresolved. In doing so, Wise reflects on how perception is never neutral but continually shaped by collective histories, social narratives and the images that surround us.

Extending the exhibition beyond the gallery, a bilingual artist’s publication brings together contributions from scientists, artists and theorists. Distributed free of charge and published by Hatje Cantz, the book reflects Wise’s ongoing interest in accessibility and the circulation of ideas, positioning the exhibition as an evolving conversation rather than a closed experience.

With Extrasensory, Chloe Wise demonstrates how contemporary art can move beyond the image itself to examine the conditions under which images are experienced. The result is an exhibition that is less concerned with revealing hidden truths than with exposing the fragile frameworks through which we construct them. In an age of information overload and manufactured certainty, Wise proposes ambiguity not as confusion, but as a necessary space for critical thought.