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Overview
'I was so focused on art history because so much of what was being told to me —'the canon'— had so many glaring absences that were very loud to me. So my work, from the beginning, really looked at those absences.' —Titus Kaphar
Depicting a black man standing next to the silhouette of a seated other, Alternate Endings is a magnificent painterly manifestation of Titus Kaphar’s diverse oeuvre, focusing on the long-overlooked presence (or absence) of black figures in the Western canon. The image, drenched in meandering cobalt blues, reveals Kaphar’s idiosyncratic portrayal of presence and absence, whereby what is shown is as essential as what is concealed. Fully discernible to the viewer in comparison to his meekly delineated counterpart, the protagonist in the composition wears an attire that is suggestive of a servant’s uniform in 16th century Netherlands, thereby addressing themes of dislocation, colonialism, and thorny Western legacies. Having come into the limelight soon after Time magazine commissioned him in 2014 to make a painting for one of its ‘Person of the Year’ finalists, Kaphar has since accumulated an impressive array of solo presentations, including, most recently, a highly acclaimed exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, in 2019.
Having taught himself how to paint by going to museums and studying historical paintings, Kaphar has been known to utilise visual strategies employed by European classicists – Rembrandt, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet – to rewrite antiquated narratives of cultural empowerment. Specifically, he has mentioned the importance of Frans Hals’ iconic sense of composition in his oeuvre, which focuses on preeminent, wealthy white subjects, with the occasional timid inclusion of a black servant. However, ‘It becomes quite obvious’, he remarks, ‘that if I'm going to learn how to paint a self-portrait by studying those [classicists], I'm going to be challenged when it comes to mixing my skin or mixing the skin of those people in my family. There's literally formulas written down historically to tell me how to paint white skin -- what colors I should use for the underpainting, what colors I should use for the impasto highlights. That doesn't really exist for dark skin’.i Blurring out the physical specificities of certain subjects to highlight the presence of frequently omitted others thus not only became Kaphar’s trademark strategy to enable Black visibility; it furthermore became a tool to challenge traditional readings of a picture.
'The only real thing that exists in the painting is the absence, the hole.' —Titus KapharThrough distinct methodologies of shredding, overpainting, and erasing both subject and support, Kaphar has, since graduating from his MFA at Yale University in 2006, built new artistic formulas apprehending Black visibility in figurative art. In Alternate Endings, the obscuring of the seated figure to the left of the composition not only serves as a self-referential element tied to Kaphar’s eclectic practice -- in which he literally cuts human-shaped silhouettes from large paintings and installations -- but also points to the systemic erasure of Black experience from historical narratives. In other words, the two characters in the composition -- one hidden and one almost palpable in verisimilitude -- together account for the diminished or dislodged identities that were either produced or deliberately forgotten by colonialist legacies for centuries. Indeed, Kaphar utilises both realism and abstraction ‘to either emphasise their absence or to get you to focus on the other folks in the composition’.ii The painting process itself, alternating between unfilled contours and complete objects and figures, becomes the embodiment of the ongoing struggle for visibility, while the saturated, artificial coloration running over the expanse of the composition adds further tension to the iconographic battle between what is there and what is not.
Titus Kaphar in His Studio
i Titus Kaphar, quoted in ‘Can beauty open our hearts to difficult conversations?’, TED.com, June 2020, reproduced online.
ii Titus Kaphar, quoted in ‘Can beauty open our hearts to difficult conversations?’, TED.com, June 2020, reproduced online.Provenance
Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present ownerArtist 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.
4
Alternate Endings
signed and dated 'Kaphar 16' on the reverse
oil on canvas mounted on panel
199 x 121.9 cm (78 3/8 x 47 7/8 in.)
Painted in 2016.
Estimate
£60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £466,200
Kate Bryan
Specialist, Head of Evening Sale
+44 20 7318 4026
kbryan@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
London Auction 20 October 2020
1
Emily Mae Smith
Alien Shores
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000 ‡
Sold for £277,200
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2
Salman Toor
Aashiana (Hearth and Home)
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡
Sold for £138,600
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3
Portia Zvavahera
Arising from the Unknown
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000 ‡
Sold for £163,800
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4
Titus Kaphar
Alternate Endings
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £466,200
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5
Hernan Bas
Two Fruits
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000
Sold for £163,800
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6
Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe
Black Stripes on White
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ‡
Sold for £94,500
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7
Dana Schutz
Trump Descending an Escalator
Estimate £380,000 - 580,000 ‡
Sold for £688,000
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8
Banksy
Girl with Balloon & Morons Sepia
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡♠
Sold for £1,232,500
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9
Nicolas Party
Rocks
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000
Sold for £603,300
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10
Georg Baselitz
Das letzte Selbstbildnis I
Estimate £4,700,000 - 6,000,000 ♠
Sold for £4,983,500
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11
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Back of the Neck
Estimate £450,000 - 650,000 ‡
Sold for £627,500
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12
Keith Haring
Untitled (Grace Jones Mask)
Estimate £1,500,000 - 2,000,000 ‡
Sold for £1,716,500
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13
George Condo
The Age of Reason
Estimate £2,000,000 - 3,000,000 ‡
Sold for £2,082,369
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14
Alex Katz
Ada with Mirror
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £529,200
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15
Yoshitomo Nara
Magic Carpet
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000
Sold for £504,000
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16
Ed Ruscha
1981 - Future
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000
Sold for £567,000
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17
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled (Pestus)
Estimate £2,000,000 - 3,000,000 ‡
Sold for £2,200,500
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18
Andy Warhol
Flowers
Estimate £1,400,000 - 1,800,000 ‡
Sold for £1,595,500
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19
Sir Peter Blake, R.A.
Nudina
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠
Sold for £75,600
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20
Allen Jones
Project for Fifteen Foot Women
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ♠
Sold for £189,000
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21
Sean Scully
Somebody's Angel
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £1,014,700
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22
Joan Mitchell
Untitled
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000
Sold for £441,000
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23
Cy Twombly
Portrait of Alvise di Robilant
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡
Sold for £510,300
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24
Alberto Giacometti
Femme debout
Estimate £550,000 - 750,000 ‡
Sold for £651,700
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25
Wojciech Fangor
M 91
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ♠
Sold for £252,000
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26
Georges Mathieu
Petite Torture infligée au Marquis de Coconat et à son complice la Môle
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ♠
Sold for £252,000
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27
Hurvin Anderson
Marlene’s
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡♠
Sold for £252,000
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28
This lot is no longer available.
29
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Luminary
Estimate £250,000 - 450,000 ♠
Sold for £315,000
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30
Henry Taylor
Ari and the Deer
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £113,400
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31
Georg Baselitz
Kopf an Kopf II
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £705,000
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32
Albert Oehlen
Control
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
Sold for £475,000
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33
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled
Estimate £800,000 - 1,200,000 ‡♠
Sold for £990,500
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34
Albert Oehlen
Die Veränderungen
Estimate £700,000 - 900,000 ♠
Sold for £809,000
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35
Günther Förg
Untitled
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ♠
Sold for £315,000
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36
Anish Kapoor
Blade
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡♠
Sold for £85,680
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37
This lot is no longer available.
38
Jason Rhoades
Heroic Vagina
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000
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39
Wolfgang Tillmans
Freischwimmer 27
Estimate £210,000 - 300,000 ♠
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40
Cory Arcangel
Photoshop CS: 110 by 72 inches, 300 DPI, RGB, square pixels, default gradient 'Spectrum', mousedown y=23900 x=11650, mouseup y=32650 x=11650
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £252,000
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