Titus Kaphar - New Now New York Wednesday, March 8, 2023 | Phillips

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  • Titus Kaphar’s unique ability to bridge sculpture, film, assemblage and painting has firmly positioned him as a leading figure in the contemporary art arena. By using historical Western paintings and deconstructing their narrative, Kaphar creates new dimensions within which his works exist. Both King and Accomplice, executed in 2008, is a prime example of the artist’s ability to transform, deface and reclaim classical Western portraiture to interrogate the racial traditions of his practice. 
    “That’s the nature of representation; every time we represent something we alter it and slightly change it. […] I give myself a certain freedom to really explore and ask myself questions. What might not have been understood at that time? What might have been hidden at that time? What narrative in this particular image wasn’t the primary image, but is really important?”
    —Titus Kaphar

    Seen and Unseen

     

    The relationship between  the seen and unseen in Both King and Accomplice is central to  Kaphar’s oeuvre in creating a reimagined history. Akin to the artist’s celebrated paintings that coat the canvas with a thick black impasto the present work brings the painting off the wall, and physically submerges the subject in tar. The life-size scale   is an exquisite exploration of materiality and the power to rewrite history. The imposing nature of Both King and Accomplice, in conjunction with the figure’s hidden features, allude to a much larger theme of the absence of Black figures in art history.

    “They were never intended to be accurate or truthful reproductions of individuals. This whole genre of ‘portraiture’ is about mythology, and attempts to magnify the sitter. After a lifetime of seeing these images from one perspective, it seems important to take them apart to get closer to something that could accurately be called a portrait.”
    —Titus Kaphar

    • Provenance

      Osart Gallery, Milan
      Art & Rhythm, Victoria
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Milan, Osart Gallery, Titus Kaphar: An Alternative History, April 3–May 22, 2009

    • Artist Biography

      Titus Kaphar

      Titus Kaphar’s work questions the nature of history and its representations in the past and today. By altering the materiality of his paintings, sculptures, and installations, Kaphar subverts conventional understandings of historical representations and exposes the uncomfortable and troubling realities of the racism in America’s past. Kaphar’s examinations of historical representations and the omissions of such representations encourage viewers to question their own relationships to history and understandings of the past. He strives to dislodge history from the past and to promote its relevance in the world today. 

      Kaphar’s work has received considerable acclaim, and his paintings have graced two covers of Time magazine. He is the recipient of a 2018 MacArthur Fellowship and his work is represented in such institutions as the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, and the Perez Art Museum Miami. He lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut.

       
      View More Works

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Both King and Accomplice

oil on canvas and tar-covered steel container on wood base
sculpture 52 3/8 x 42 3/8 x 6 1/4 in. (133 x 107.6 x 15.9 cm)
wood base 17 5/8 x 61 x 34 1/2 in. (44.8 x 154.9 x 87.6 cm)
overall 70 x 61 x 34 1/2 in. (177.8 x 154.9 x 87.6 cm)

Executed in 2008.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$150,000 - 200,000 

Contact Specialist

Avery Semjen
Head of Sale, New Now
212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com

New Now

New York Auction 8 March 2023