Titus Kaphar: Can art amend history?
Titus Kaphar: Može li umjetnost ispraviti povijest?
Titus Kaphar's artworks interact with the history of art by appropriating its styles and mediums. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
to the Natural History Museum?
Prirodoslovnom muzeju?
is I take my kids to the museum.
to the Natural History Museum.
u Prirodoslovni muzej.
Sabianom i Dabithom.
Sabian and Dabith.
entrance of the museum,
Teddyja Roosevelta.
of Teddy Roosevelt out there.
s jednom rukom na konju,
with one hand on the horse,
zavrnutih rukava.
but it kind of feels like it.
ali čini se kao da ima.
hoda Indijanac.
is a Native American walking.
is an African-American walking.
hoda Afroamerikanac.
ima devet godina, kaže,
kako bi im to objasnio,
to try to explain that,
I try to do with them anyways.
would have never really asked.
nikad ne bih postavio.
nevjerojatne institucije."
of such an amazing institution."
da ispravimo svoje javne skulpture,
to amend our public sculptures,
when I was born.
with his own things
zbog jedne žene.
is because of a woman.
fantastic, beautiful, smart woman,
prelijepa, pametna žena,
about your future."
"Sad razmišljam o svojoj budućnosti."
"I'm thinking about my future now."
to the junior college
do visoke škole
to what I was registering to.
na što se prijavljujem.
about art history.
when I went into that class.
na tom satu.
bila potrebna.
i rekao, "Tko je to?"
and say, "Who's that?"
Očito se radi o Van Goghu.
Clearly that is Van Gogh.
I wasn't a great student. OK?
bio odličan učenik. OK?
jako, jako velika stvar,
da mogu učiti vizualno,
that I was able to learn things visually
moja taktika
this became my tactic
Things were going well.
Sve je bilo dobro.
povijesti umjetnosti.
these art history classes.
od zadnjih satova povijesti umjetnosti.
I will not forget, I will never forget.
povijesti umjetnosti.
art history classes.
survey art history classes,
povijesti umjetnosti,
cijelu povijest umjetnosti
the entire history of art
i Jacksonu Pollocku
and Jackson Pollock
no svejedno pokušavaju.
but they try anyway.
dio od 14 stranica
was about a 14-page section
of black people in painting
let's just put it that way.
the other classes that I had,
razgovarati o tom poglavlju,
to go over that particular chapter,
to go through it."
hold on, professor, professor.
pričekajte, profesorice.
Ovo mi je stvarno bitno poglavlje.
important chapter to me.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
that this is significant.
jer moramo pričati."
because we need to talk."
out of her office.
"Ne mogu ju prisiliti da nešto predaje."
"I can't force her to teach anything."
if I wanted to understand this history,
želim li shvatiti ovu povijest,
onih koji su morali hodati,
of those folks who had to walk,
to have to figure that out myself.
i gledajući ovakve slike.
and looking at images like this.
some slight differences in the painting.
that I had been absorbing
koju sam upijao
da je slikanje jezik.
that painting is a language.
in the composition here.
this gold necklace here.
pokazuje ovu zlatnu ogrlicu.
about the economic status
ljudi u tim slikama.
of the compositional structure,
zbog kompozicije,
that they have quite a bit of money.
da imaju puno novaca.
this other character here.
in research on these kinds of paintings,
istražujući ovakve slike,
koju žena na ovoj slici nosi --
in this painting --
nego o ovom liku ovdje,
than I can about this character here,
just put inside of this paint
kako pomaknuti svoj pogled,
imaju u muzejima?
of sculptures at museums?
of these kinds of paintings
of themselves all the time?
kao što razmišljamo o --
kako biste nešto fotografirali. Zar ne?
you actually had to focus. Right?
a little to the right,
a ljudi iza ušli bi u fokus.
in the background would come out.
the struggles of our past
and the advances of our present.
i prednostima naše sadašnjosti.
and getting rid of stuff.
i uklanjanjem.
do it in the same way
zakon u Ustavu SAD-a,
a law in the American Constitution,
no tu smo sada."
but this is where we are right now."
pomoglo shvatiti nešto više
understand a little bit
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Titus Kaphar - ArtistTitus Kaphar's artworks interact with the history of art by appropriating its styles and mediums.
Why you should listen
As Titus Kaphar says of his work: "I’ve always been fascinated by history: art history, American history, world history, individual history -- how history is written, recorded, distorted, exploited, reimagined and understood. In my work I explore the materiality of reconstructive history. I paint and I sculpt, often borrowing from the historical canon, and then alter the work in some way. I cut, crumple, shroud, shred, stitch, tar, twist, bind, erase, break, tear and turn the paintings and sculptures I create, reconfiguring them into works that nod to hidden narratives and begin to reveal unspoken truths about the nature of history."
Kaphar is founder/CEO of the NXTHVN, a multidisciplinary arts incubator that's being built to train professional artists and to further establish New Haven's growing creative community. His latest works are an investigation into the highest and lowest forms of recording history. From monuments to mug shots, this body of work exhibited at Jack Shainman gallery December-January 2017 seeks to collapse the line of American history to inhabit a fixed point in the present. Historical portraiture, mug shots, and YouTube stills challenge viewers to consider how we document the past, and what we have erased. Rather than explore guilt or innocence, Kaphar engages the narratives of individuals and how we as a society manage and define them over time. As a whole, this exhibition explores the power of rewritten histories to question the presumption of innocence and the mythology of the heroic.
Titus Kaphar | Speaker | TED.com