ART-PRESENTATION:Titus Kaphar
Titus Kaphar is a painter and a sculptor. His work explores and wrestles with our long history of slavery and racism. He often borrows from the historical canon, and then alters the work in some way. Using techniques like cutting, crumpling, shredding, erasing and more, Kaphar creates art that nods to history’s untold narratives and reveal its unspoken truths.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Brooklyn Museum Archive
Titus Kaphar’s presents “Shifting the Gaze” (2017) as part of One Brooklyn exhibition series in conjunction with the exhibition “Rembrandt to Picasso: Five Centuries of European Works on Paper”. “Shifting the Gaze” draws our attention to narratives from the past that illuminate conditions in the present. Kaphar completed the painting, a loose copy of a 17th Century family portrait by the Dutch artist Frans Hals (1582-1666). In a dramatic finale, he picked up a large paint brush and proceeded to obliterate many of the figures in the painting with broad strokes of white paint, leaving a Black boy as the center of the composition. By shifting the spectator’s gaze to the boy, believed to be the family servant, Kaphar brings into focus individuals who are often deliberately overlooked in the historical record, for reasons that include race, class, or gender. By doing so, he makes a case for the need to write new, more honest and inclusive histories. As Titus Kaphar says of his work: “I’ve always been fascinated by history: art history, American history, world history, individual history, how history is written, recorded, distorted, exploited, reimagined and understood. In my work I explore the materiality of reconstructive history. I paint and I sculpt, often borrowing from the historical canon, and then alter the work in some way. I cut, crumple, shroud, shred, stitch, tar, twist, bind, erase, break, tear and turn the paintings and sculptures I create, reconfiguring them into works that nod to hidden narratives and begin to reveal unspoken truths about the nature of history”. Also, as part of the exhibition “Rembrandt to Picasso: Five Centuries of European Works on Paper”, Kaphar provides written commentary on selected drawings and prints on view, helping to shine a light on the Eurocentric bias of the art-historical canon. Most recently, Kaphar collaborated with poet, memoirist, and attorney Reginald Dwayne Betts on “The Redaction” (31/3-5/5/19) at MoMA PS1. Drawing inspiration and source material from lawsuits filed by the Civil Rights Corps (CRC) on behalf of people incarcerated because of an inability to pay court fines and fees, The “Redaction” features poetry by Betts in combination with Kaphar’s etched portraits of incarcerated individuals. Together, Betts’s poems and Kaphar’s printed portraits blend the voices of poet and artist with those of the plaintiffs and prosecutors, reclaiming these lost narratives and drawing attention to some of the many individuals whose lives have been impacted by mass incarceration.
Cover photo: Titus Kaphar, Shifting the Gaze, 2017. Oil on canvas, 210.8 × 262.3 cm, Brooklyn Museum, William K. Jacobs Jr., Fund, 2017.34, © Titus Kaphar, Photo: Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery
Info: Curator: Eugenie Tsai, Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York, Duration: 21/6-23/10/19, Days & Hours: Wed & Fri-Sun 11:00-18:00, Thu 11:00-22:00, www.brooklynmuseum.org