Titus Kaphar

This book provides a behind-the-scenes view of the debut feature film, Exhibiting Forgiveness, by renowned artist and director, Titus Kaphar. The film follows Tarrell, a successful Black painter, who reunites with his estranged father, La Ron. Having endured years of La Ron s addiction and abuse as a child, the trauma of Tarrell s past reverberates throughout his life and art. Facing his newly sober father, Tarrell must reconcile himself with his childhood and determine how to move forward. With poignant performances by Andre Holland, Andra Day, John Earl Jelks, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Exhibiting Forgiveness masterfully depicts the cycle of abuse and comments on the power dynamics of the contemporary art world. Juxtaposing a marked-up script with film stills, this publication captures the transformation of Exhibiting Forgiveness into a feature film. It also illustrates fifteen paintings that Kaphar created for the movie to showcase Tarrell s vibrant artistic practice.

Throughout their award-winning careers, visual artist and filmmaker Titus Kaphar and poet, memoirist, and attorney Reginald Dwayne Betts have shed light on the violences of incarceration and the underexplored contradictions of American history. In Redaction, they unite their different mediums to expose the ways the legal system exploits and erases the poor and incarcerated from public consciousness. First exhibited at MoMA PS1, the fifty “Redaction” prints layer Kaphar’s etched portraits of incarcerated individuals with Betts’s poetry, which uses the legal strategy of redaction to craft verse out of legal documents. Three prints are broken apart into their distinct layers, illuminating how the pair manipulated traditional engraving, printing, poetic, and redaction processes to reveal what is often concealed. This beautifully designed volume also includes additional artwork, poetry, and an introduction by MoMA associate director Sarah Suzuki. The result is an astonishing, powerful exploration of history, incarceration, and race in America.