TITUS KAPHAR
by Diana McClure
The work of Titus Kaphar confounds intellectual rationality with deeply personal emotion in a dialogue that dances between explosive agony and triumph. Collectively the work reveals a search for freedom and knowledge of self from the narrative of black and white racial history. This visual discussion exists on the plain of materiality via the materials used, the forms they take and the theme of the physical body, defined by skin color. Underlying this experience of the physical plain, the deeply subjective psychic struggle for freedom, of the artist, can be felt through the works emotional power.
A sense of triumph is invoked through the sculptural works: 1) Slipage; 2) Shroud; and, 3) Finding, folding and fondling our first forefather. These works immediately bring to mind the work of sculptor Anish Kapoor through shared qualities of sensual innovation in relation to traditional forms often experienced as controlled and rigid. The sensuality of Kaphar’s and Kapoor’s sculpture suggests a freedom from the inscribed definition of the body or physical form by historically dominant cultural practices. By extension Kaphar reveals a capacity for freedom when he completely re-defines physical form so that its only visible connection to the past is a glimmer of an image that no longer has power due to its de-construction and re-constitution. The interesting growth found in these pieces is that they are not an erasure of the past as in pieces like: 1) Spouse; 2) Through; and, 3) Wholeness, they are successful holistic re-visionist definitions of identity.
In comparison, the works: 1) Aftermath: Artifact #2 and, 2) Scream, also sculptural works, share a similar resolution but one that suggest making peace with history as opposed to triumph over history. These works, alongside the Conversation Between Paintings series, suggest that perhaps they represent the moment when the artist stepped beyond psychic defeat into the possibility of freedom within -- now expressed through eloquently sensual sculptural form.
- Diana McClure, Brooklyn 2008 |
