Titus Kaphar is a Black American artist and filmmaker born in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1976. Much of his work’s a conceptual interrogation of American history and its relationship to Black people. My own first contact was with his 2019 painting Flay (James Madison), taking a traditional portrait of the early president and partially shredding it to emphasize his identity as a slaveholder. It was part of the University of Michigan Museum of Art’s reorganization of its traditional collection several years back and probably a centerpiece of their new direction.

“Flay” on display at the University of Michigan

I’ve heard of him here and there and always meant to follow up; I had no idea he made movies until learning of Exhibiting Forgiveness, which came out last year and starred Andre Holland and (a longtime favorite of mine) Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. One of his most celebrated projects was 2014’s Beyond the Myth of Benevolence, portraying a portrait of Thomas Jefferson slowly peeled back to reveal a Black woman inspired by Sally Hemings. Its exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery in DC sparked several instances of vandalism which required extra security precautions.

“Beyond the Myth of Benevolence” at the National Portrait Gallery

The former really testifies to the continued relevance of figurative painting (akin to “if voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal”–uh, they’ve been trying?) and I was brought up short Sunday on my visit to the Detroit Institute of Arts to find Kaphar’s stunning I Knew from 2023 in the contemporary Black gallery (increasingly one of my favorite spaces in the joint, not least for its mix of the conceptual, politically urgent, and long-standing traditions; Kehinde Wiley’s nearby take on Copley’s Watson and the Shark is a perfect example thereof). It was a stirring, chromatically striking modern genre picture and straight up my alley (it’s not in the actual gallery, but Mario Moore’s nearby The Council (2020) struck me with the same force when I first saw it). Icing on the cake was that it was “Drawing in the Galleries” day and there was a mix of kids and adults on their benches drawing it. It was a great expression of what the museum ought to represent.

“I Knew” with unidentified copyist at the Detroit Institute of Arts

I’m really looking forward to learning more about his work; one big project this year is to delve a lot deeper into contemporary art and Kaphar’s example will likely be a lodestone, not least as much of it’s apparently more a politically-charged surrealist twist on classic genre painting (more of that, please).

Have a great day! Also sorry that these in-text images proved so relatively small; I’m still working with Classic Editor and don’t know how to enlarge them.