“I started looking for something to change through the watching, that somehow I was going to watch this video again, and I was going to see something different, and I just felt myself trapped in it. The one thing that I did notice beyond the tragedy of the whole film, there was one moment that felt pivotal. That was the moment in which the officer takes Sandra out of the frame.” –Titus Kaphar
ON THE ROLE OF PORTRAITURE:
I’m deeply interested in portraiture as a form, and when you look at mugshots as a form, that kind of portraiture only has a single purpose. It’s to memorialize criminality. It really has no other real aesthetic function. There are no aesthetic questions asked about lighting, about composition, about pose … three-quarter, portrait, profile … in a way that would attempt to uplift or glorify the sitter.
ON VISUALIZING INMATES:
I began to create these portraits to meditate on the faces of people who have, not just survived the institution, our prison system, but who have come out and really begun to work towards changing the system…When you’re dealing with these kinds of issues, it’s so very easy to get lost in the horror. It’s so very easy to get lost in the losses. The wins, the success stories don’t often come through. So those portraits, that whole series, are folks who are working in the community trying to make things better for everyone, honestly.
ON THE ROLE OF ART AND POLITICS:
I’m not a painter that believes you put a painting on the wall and it changes the world. I think it’s a conversation starter. I think it can provoke questions. It can move us emotionally, but I believe strongly that, as artists, we need to engage the system in some broader ways if we want to see the changes in the world that we hope for, that we paint about.
Interview with Bill Keller for The Marshall Project “Titus Kaphar on Art, Race, and Justice” (February 1, 2017)
10 AM-5 PM
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