Titus Kaphar is an artist whose paintings, sculptures, and installations examine the history of representation by transforming its styles and mediums with formal innovations to emphasize the physicality and dimensionality of the canvas and materials themselves. His practice seeks to dislodge history from its status as the “past” in order to unearth its contemporary relevance. He cuts, crumples, shrouds, shreds, stitches, tars, twists, binds, erases, breaks, tears, and turns the paintings and sculptures he creates, reconfiguring them into works that reveal unspoken truths about the nature of history. Open areas become active absences; walls enter into the portraits; stretcher bars are exposed; and structures that are typically invisible underneath, behind, or inside the canvas are laid bare to reveal the interiors of the work. In so doing, Kaphar’s aim is to reveal something of what has been lost and to investigate the power of a rewritten history.
Titus Kaphar was born in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Michigan and lives and works in New Haven, CT. Kaphar received an MFA from the Yale School of Art and is a distinguished recipient of numerous prizes and awards including a 2018 MacArthur Fellowship, a 2018 Art for Justice Fund grant, a 2016 Robert R. Rauschenberg Artist as Activist grant, and a 2015 Creative Capital grant. Kaphar’s work, Analogous colors, was featured on the cover of the June 15, 2020 issue of TIME. He gave a TED talk at the annual conference in Vancouver 2017, where he completed a whitewash painting, Shifting the Gaze, onstage. Kaphar’s work has been included in solo exhibitions at the Seattle Art Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA PS1 and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, among others. His work is included in the collections of Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AK; the 21C Museum Collection; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; and the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Miami, FL, amongst others.
Kaphar’s commitment to social engagement has led him to move beyond traditional modes of artistic expression to establish NXTHVN, an arts incubator and residency program based in New Haven, Connecticut. Through intergenerational mentorship, professional development and cross-sector collaboration, NXTHVN connects early-career artists and creative professionals with the resources and networks vital to their success. Now in its second year of operation, NXTHVN provides an alternative model of professional development and mentorship in the arts, and encourages artists, art professionals, and local entrepreneurs to expand New Haven’s growing creative community. Supporters include: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Stonesthrow Fund, and the RISC Foundation. For more information on current Fellows, events and how to become a supporter please visit nxthvn.com.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020
- Titus Kaphar: The Evidence of Things Unseen, MARUANI MERCIER, Gesù Church, Brussels, Belgium
- From a Tropical Space, Gagosian gallery, NY
2019
- Survey, MARUANI MERCIER, Knokke, Belgium, August 2 - September 7, 2019
- Forgotten Solider, American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, Yorktown, VA June 29, 2019 - March 22, 2020
- One: Titus Kaphar, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, June 21 - October 13, 2019
- The Vesper Project, MARUANI MERCIER, Zaventem, Belgium, May 18 - September 28, 2019
- Suffering from Realness, Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA, April 19, 2019 –January 1, 2020
- Redaction, A Project by Titus Kaphar and Reginald Dwayne Betts, MoMA PS1, New York, March 31 2018 - May 6, 2019
2018
- Unseen: Our past in a new light, The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, March 2018 – 2019
2017
- Impressions of liberty, installation at Princeton University Maclean House, Princeton, NJ, November – December 2016
2016
- Shifting Skies, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, Decembre 2016 - January 28, 2017
2015
- Titus Kaphar: Drawing the Blinds and Asphalt and Chalk, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, January 15 – February 21, 2015
- 99 Jeromes, ArtSpace, New Haven, Connecticut, July 17 – September 12, 2015
- Titus Kaphar: Selections from Asphalt and Chalk, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY, June 10 – August 31, 2015
2014-2017
- The Vesper Project, Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 17 – September 13, 2014. Travelling to: New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, November 2014–February 2015; American University Museum at the Katzen Art Center, Washington, D.C., November 7 – December 13, 2015; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Fall 2015–Spring 2016
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2018
- Parallel lives, Kavi Gupta, Chicago, IL, June 1-August 18, 2018
- On whiteness, the Racial Imaginary Institute at The Kitchen, New York, NY, June 27-August 3, 2018
- From enslavement to mass incarceration, permanent exhibition, the Legacy Museum, Montgomery, AL, 20
2017
- 20/20: The Studio Museum in Harlem and Carnegie Museum of Art, Heinz Galleries, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, July 22 – December 31, 2017
- Examining Political Expressions in African American Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, July 23 – October 22, 2017
- The Legacy of Lynching: Confronting Racial Terror in America, Brooklyn Museum, New York, July 26 – September 3, 2017
2016
- For Freedoms, Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 West 20th Street, New York, NY, June 30 – July 29, 2016
- Arresting Patterns: Perspectives on Race, Criminal Justice, Artistic Expression, and Community, African American Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 30 – September 11, 2016
- Recharging the Image: Selections from the Mott-Warsh Collection, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, New Jersey, April 4 – July 10, 2016
- Dress Up, Speak Up: Costume and Confrontation, 21c Museum Hotel, Durham, North Carolina, September 2016 – July 2017
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
- Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama
- Brooklyn Museum, New York
- The Burger Collection, Zurich, Switzerland
- Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas
- The Equal Justice Initiative Museum, Montgomery, Alabama
- Mott-Warsh Collection, Flint, Michigan
- New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut
- Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Miami, Florida
- The Museum of Modern Art, New York
- The National Gallery of Victoria, Australia
- The Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, Ohio
- Seattle Museum of Art, Seattle, Washington
- Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York
- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
- The Legacy Museum, Montgomery, AL
AWARDS
- 2018 Art for Justice, Imagining Justice Grantee
- 2018 The Rappaport Prize
- 2018 MacArthur Fellow
- 2017 The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant
- 2016 Artist as Activist Fellow: Racial Justice + Mass Incarceration, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
- 2015 Creative Capital Fellow
- 2009 Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Fellowship Recipient, Seattle Art Museum
- 2006 Artist in Residence, The Studio Museum In Harlem
- 2004 Belle Arts Foundation Grantee
- 2001 California Arts Council Grantee
