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Gagosian Quarterly

October 5, 2020

titus kaphar: From a Tropical Space

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

Artwork © Titus Kaphar; video: a collaboration between Titus Kaphar and John Dennis @auxprojects; music: Samora Pinderhughes (featuring Elena)

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.

Titus Kaphar: Can Beauty Open Our Hearts to Difficult Conversations?

Titus Kaphar: Can Beauty Open Our Hearts to Difficult Conversations?

In this TED talk, presented during the sweeping protests against racism and police violence following the killing of George Floyd, Titus Kaphar describes how the beauty of a painting can draw the viewer in and allow difficult conversations to emerge. Kaphar discusses his own work and shares the idea behind NXTHVN, a new national arts model he founded to empower artists of color through education and access.

Titus Kaphar, Braiding possibility, 2020, Oil on canvas, 83 3/4 × 68 inches (212.7 × 172.7 cm)

Seeing the Child: Braiding possibility

Titus Kaphar and Tochi Onyebuchi present an excerpt from their short story “Seeing the Child,” a poetic rumination on Kaphar’s latest body of work, From a Tropical Space (2019–).

Titus Kaphar in his studio, painting

Titus Kaphar: In the Studio

Jacoba Urist reports on a recent trip to the artist’s studio in New Haven, Connecticut, to see his new body of work, From a Tropical Space (2019–). She writes on the emotional and sensory impact of these paintings and considers their singular place in Titus Kaphar’s oeuvre.

Titus Kaphar, Father and Son, 2010, oil on canvas, 59 ⅞ × 48 inches (152 × 122 cm). Photo: Jon Lam Photography, courtesy Friedman Benda

Titus Kaphar: Intricate Illusion

Bridget R. Cooks investigates the aesthetic and narrative conventions deployed by the artist, demonstrating how his paintings force provocative confrontations with history through complex modes of depiction.

The artist Titus Kaphar giving a TED talk

Titus Kaphar: Can Art Amend History?

Join Titus Kaphar as he talks about making paintings and sculptures that wrestle with the struggles of the past while speaking to the diversity and advances of the present. Working onstage, he points to the narratives coded in the language of art history as he creates a new painting, demonstrating how shifting our focus can prompt us to ask questions and confront unspoken truths.

Image of artist Mary Weatherford in front of her artwork

Mary Weatherford: The Flaying of Marsyas

In conjunction with her exhibition The Flaying of Marsyas at Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Venice, Mary Weatherford discusses the featured paintings, which are directly inspired by Titian’s late, eponymous masterpiece of circa 1570–76 and reflect her enduring fascination with the painting.

A Foreigner Called Picasso

Behind the Art
A Foreigner Called Picasso

Join president of the Picasso Museum, Paris, Cécile Debray; curator, writer, biographer, and historian Annie Cohen-Solal; art historian Vérane Tasseau; and Gagosian director Serena Cattaneo Adorno as they discuss A Foreigner Called Picasso. Organized in association with the Musée national Picasso–Paris and the Palais de la Porte Dorée–Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris, the exhibition reframes our perception of Picasso and focuses on his status as a permanent foreigner in France.