Titus Kaphar’s work takes a critical interest in transgressive interventions in the narratives found in eighteenth to twentieth century European and American portrait paintings. Kaphar’s practice of formal manipulation of canvas by means of cutting, overpainting and reducing to sculptural refuse engages racialized narratives to undermine hierarchical roles of the past. Employing modernist gestures on pre-modern images, Kaphar constructs contemporary narratives that result from encounters between disparate images to defy a singular representation or history.

Kaphar takes as his starting point European and American portrait paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries; he then makes oil-on-canvas copies and reconfigures them in strategic ways.

Several of Kaphar’s pieces begin with oil-on-canvas copies of work from artists such as Copley, Delacroix, Blake and others. These 18th- and 19th-century artists often depict the relationship between black and white people, with black people in positions of slavery, poverty or servitude. Kaphar then reconfigures these paintings, commenting on the portrayal of black people in Western art.

“I am experimenting with transgressive interventions on paintings as a means of undermining hierarchical roles of the past and imposing on them contemporary narratives,” Kaphar said in his artist statement.

“In each piece, meaning is formed in the relationship between the historical image on the surface and the residue of the physical intervention,” Kaphar explained. “In many of my pieces, the appropriated painted image becomes the site where the intervention is performed.”

One piece, a “Conversation Between Paintings No. 3: Descent,” features a black man who fought in Savannah during the American Revolution in 1779 alongside the portrait of a duke. Although not a native of Savannah, Jean-Baptiste Belley, when he was 16 years old, was one of 545 black volunteers who fought in Savannah during the Revolution. Later, he was one of six Saint Domingan representatives to the French Convention in Paris that declared the abolition of slavery in the French colonies in 1794.

Kaphar created a diptych by placing a copy of Sir John Baptiste de Medina’s portrait, “James Drummond, 2nd Titular Duke of Perth,” (1700), alongside a copy of Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson’s portrait, “Jean-Baptiste Belley” (1797). He alters the scenes by cutting out and removing a young, black figure who was admiring Drummond, and transfers him to the painting of Belley, creating a conversation between the two paintings.

Kaphar graduated from Yale University in May 2006 with a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting. Since then, he has exhibited in Berlin, New York, San Francisco and Vienna.

Images and text courtesy of Titus Kaphar and Roberts & Tilton (Culver City, California, United States) and Savannah College of Art and Design.

TITUS KAPHAR

Born 1976, Kalamazoo, MI, United States
Resides New York City, NY, United States

Education

2006 MFA, Painting, Yale University
2001 BFA, Painting, San Jose State University, Minor African-American Studies

Solo Exhibitions

2009
Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, CA
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA

2008
“Painting Undone” Red Gallery, Savannah College of Art and Design

2005
Yale Art Gallery, Trumbull Gallery, New Haven, CT

2004
Provisions Library, Washington, D.C.
“Visual Quotations” Anno Domini Gallery, San Jose, CA

2000
“The House That Crack Built” San Jose State University Gallery 2, San Jose, CA

Group Exhibitions

2008
“Macrocosm” Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, CA
“Cancelled, Erased & Removed” Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, NY and Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Museum, Kalamazoo, MI

2007
“Blur” Arndt Partner Gallery, Berlin, Germany
“Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song” Von Lintel Gallery, New York, NY
“Midnight’s Daydream” The Studio Museum In Harlem, New York, NY
“My Love Is a 187” The Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco, CA
“Salon Nouveau” Galerie Engholm Engelhorn, Vienna, Austria

2006
“Lag-Time Line-up” Mumbo Jumbo Gallery, New York, NY
“Materiality” Kravets Wheby Gallery, New York, NY
“School Days” Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, NY

2004
“Edges” Euphrat Museum of Art, Cupertino, CA

2003
Stop Art Gallery, San Jose, CA

2002
“Studio 110, Re-Presenting Ourselves” San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA, Mountain View City Hall, Mountain View, CA

2001
“The African-American Spirit in Contemporary Art” Mexican Heritage Plaza, San Jose, CA,
San Jose State University, Africana Center, San Jose, CA

2000
“Black Artists: Creations” San Francisco African American Historical & Cultural Society, Fort, Mason Center, San Francisco, CA
Lockheed Martin, Sunnyvale, CA
“…of Subversion and Dominance” San Jose Art League, San Jose, CA

Awards
2006 Artist in Residence, The Studio Museum In Harlem, October 4, 2006
2004 Belle Arts Foundation Grantee, January 2004
2001 California Arts Council Grantee, December 2001

Bibliography
2008 Titus Kaphar: Painting Undone. Savannah: SCAD Exhibitions, 2008.
2007 “Three Contemporaries, Each With a Different Way to View the Past.” The New York Times, August 11, 2007
2005 “The Art of Cut-and-Paste.” The Yale Bulletin & Calendar, December 16, 2005
2004 “From the Margins of Art History, a Painter’s Minority Report.” Washington Post, April 11, 2004
KPFA Radio Interview. Berkeley and Washington, D.C., February/April 2004
2003 “Artist Repaints History’s Blackout.” San Jose Mercury News, December 7, 2003