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Titus Kaphar

From a Tropical Space

October 1–December 19, 2020
West 21st Street, New York

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Installation video

Installation view Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: Rob McKeever

Works Exhibited

Titus Kaphar, Not My Burden, 2019 Oil on canvas, 66 × 60 ¼ inches (167.6 × 153 cm)© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Not My Burden, 2019

Oil on canvas, 66 × 60 ¼ inches (167.6 × 153 cm)
© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, The distance between what we have and what we want, 2019 Oil on canvas, 108 × 84 ¼ inches (274.3 × 214 cm)© Titus Kaphar. Photo: Alexander Harding

Titus Kaphar, The distance between what we have and what we want, 2019

Oil on canvas, 108 × 84 ¼ inches (274.3 × 214 cm)
© Titus Kaphar. Photo: Alexander Harding

Titus Kaphar, Analogous Colors, 2020 Oil on canvas, 66 × 60 inches (167.6 × 152.4 cm)© Titus Kaphar. Photo: Christopher Gardner

Titus Kaphar, Analogous Colors, 2020

Oil on canvas, 66 × 60 inches (167.6 × 152.4 cm)
© Titus Kaphar. Photo: Christopher Gardner

Titus Kaphar, From a Tropical Space, 2019 Oil on canvas, 92 × 72 inches ((233.7 × 182.9 cm)© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, From a Tropical Space, 2019

Oil on canvas, 92 × 72 inches ((233.7 × 182.9 cm)
© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Twins, 2020 Oil on canvas, 83 ¾ × 68 inches (212.7 × 172.7 cm)© Titus Kaphar. Photo: Alexander Harding

Titus Kaphar, Twins, 2020

Oil on canvas, 83 ¾ × 68 inches (212.7 × 172.7 cm)
© Titus Kaphar. Photo: Alexander Harding

Titus Kaphar, The Aftermath, 2020 Oil on canvas, 114 × 180 inches (289.6 × 457.2 cm)© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, The Aftermath, 2020

Oil on canvas, 114 × 180 inches (289.6 × 457.2 cm)
© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Braiding possibility, 2020 Oil on canvas, 83 ¾ × 68 inches (212.7 × 172.7 cm)© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Braiding possibility, 2020

Oil on canvas, 83 ¾ × 68 inches (212.7 × 172.7 cm)
© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Beneath an unforgiving sun, 2020 Oil on canvas, 83 ¾ × 68 inches (212.7 × 172.7 cm)© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Beneath an unforgiving sun, 2020

Oil on canvas, 83 ¾ × 68 inches (212.7 × 172.7 cm)
© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Expecting (From a Tropical Space), 2019 Oil on canvas, 66 × 66 ¼ inches (167.6 × 153 cm)© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Expecting (From a Tropical Space), 2019

Oil on canvas, 66 × 66 ¼ inches (167.6 × 153 cm)
© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Intravenous, 2020 Oil on canvas, 60 × 60 inches (152.4 × 152.4 cm)© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Intravenous, 2020

Oil on canvas, 60 × 60 inches (152.4 × 152.4 cm)
© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Final Chapter, 2020 Oil on canvas, 83 ¾ × 68 inches (212.7 × 172.7 cm)© Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar, Final Chapter, 2020

Oil on canvas, 83 ¾ × 68 inches (212.7 × 172.7 cm)
© Titus Kaphar

About

Gagosian is pleased to present From a Tropical Space, an exhibition of new paintings by Titus Kaphar. This is Kaphar’s first exhibition with the gallery and inaugurates his representation.

A painter, sculptor, filmmaker, and installation artist, Kaphar reexamines American history by deconstructing existing representations and styles through his own formal innovations. His practice seeks to dislodge history from its status as “past” in order to understand its continuing impact on the present. Using materials including tar, glass, and rusted nails—together with highly refined oil painting—and employing techniques such as cutting, shredding, stitching, binding, and erasing, he reworks canonical art historical codes and conventions. And by uncovering the conceptual and narrative underpinnings of certain source images, he explores the manipulation of cultural and personal identity as a central thematic concern while inventing new narratives.

While much of Kaphar’s work begins with an exhaustive study of pre-twentieth-century master painting techniques, From a Tropical Space sees him wield these various methods to create an emotionally saturated visual landscape that is entirely contemporary. Just as artists, through time, have translated the fraught and mercurial sociopolitical contexts in which they operate into new and often radical aesthetic modes, so do the pervasive social and cultural anxieties of the world in which we find ourselves resonate throughout Kaphar’s new work.

Read more

Titus Kaphar in his studio, touching his painting.

Titus Kaphar: From a Tropical Space

Join the artist in his studio in New Haven, Connecticut, where he speaks about his latest paintings.

Detail of Lauren Halsey sculpture depicting praying hands, planets, and other symbol against red and green background

Black Futurity: Lessons in (Art) History to Forge a Path Forward

Jon Copes asks, What can Black History Month mean in the year 2024? He looks to a selection of scholars and artists for the answer.

Titus Kaphar and Derek Cianfrance both wearing large headphones and tee-shirts on a film set

Titus Kaphar and Derek Cianfrance

Titus Kaphar and director Derek Cianfrance spoke on the opening night of Titus Kaphar Selects, a film program curated by the artist as part of a series copresented by Gagosian and Metrograph in the spring of 2023. The pair discussed their respective practices, including Cianfrance’s film Blue Valentine (2010) and Kaphar’s film Exhibiting Forgiveness, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2024.

NXTHVN, 169 Henry Street, New Haven, Connecticut. Photo: John Dennis

NXTHVN: Curatorial Visions

Jamillah Hinson and Marissa Del Toro, recent curatorial fellows of Titus Kaphar’s nonprofit community arts hub NXTHVN, address their curatorial praxes.

Titus Kaphar and Zoé Whitley sit in front of the artist’s artwork

In Conversation
Titus Kaphar and Zoé Whitley

Join Titus Kaphar and Zoé Whitley as they discuss the artist’s recent exhibition New Alte̲rs: Reworking Devotion, featuring paintings and sculptures in which Kaphar examines the history of representation by altering the work’s supports to reveal oft unspoken social and political truths.

Titus Kaphar at NXTHVN, New Haven, Connecticut

NXTHVN

NXTHVN is a new national arts model that empowers emerging artists and curators of color through education and access. Through intergenerational mentorship, professional development, and cross-sector collaboration, NXTHVN accelerates professional careers in the arts. Join Titus Kaphar and Jason Price on a tour of the organization’s headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut. They discuss the founding and vision for this singular arts space.

News

Titus Kaphar in his studio with his painting The Aftermath (2020), New Haven, Connecticut, 2020. Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: John Lucas

Artist Spotlight

Titus Kaphar

May 6–12, 2020

Painter, sculptor, filmmaker, and installation artist Titus Kaphar confronts history by dismantling classical structures and styles of visual representation in Western art in order to subvert them. Dislodging entrenched narratives from their status as “past” so as to understand and estimate their impact on the present, he exposes the conceptual underpinnings of contested nationalist histories and colonialist legacies and how they have served to manipulate both cultural and personal identity.

Titus Kaphar in his studio with his painting The Aftermath (2020), New Haven, Connecticut, 2020. Artwork © Titus Kaphar. Photo: John Lucas

Titus Kaphar. Photo: Sasha Arutyunova

New Representation

Titus Kaphar

Gagosian is pleased to announce the representation of Titus Kaphar. A painter, sculptor, and filmmaker whose work addresses salient social and political concerns, Kaphar employs deconstructive techniques such as cutting, shredding, charring, and erasing, combining them with reconstructive acts such as stitching and binding to reexamine visual representation in Western art. Wielding the pictorial strategies of European classicists such as Diego Velázquez and Théodore Géricault in order to probe contested histories and colonialist legacies, he rewrites them into narratives of cultural empowerment. In his latest series of paintings, From a Tropical Space (2019–), Kaphar creates surreal, emotionally intense landscapes that are firmly rooted in the present. In conjunction with Kaphar’s representation by Gagosian, the gallery is also supporting NXTHVN (Next Haven), a nonprofit arts hub that the artist founded with Jason Price and Jonathan Brand in 2015 in the Dixwell neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut.

Titus Kaphar. Photo: Sasha Arutyunova