The artist not only pictorially cleaves the two bodies together, he literally does so by using brass nails to anchor van der Weyden’s Christ onto Jordan’s silhouette. In van der Weyden’s 15th century painting, a man dressed in black and gold robes gently holds Jesus’ legs aloft as others carry him down. Oil and rusted nails on canvas. Purchased with a gift from Ellen and Stephen Susman, B.A. To complete the work, Kaphar cut out the canvas to show a mother’s loss: Floyd called out to his deceased mother […]. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” he declared, “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. Some exhibitions are as much about life as about art. Rick Lowe’s pioneering Project Row Houses, Mark Bradford, whose 20,000-square-foot Art + Practice campus in Leimert Park, Los Angeles. Kaphar’s 60″x60″ oil painting, titled Analogous Colors, features an African-American mother holding her child. As a graduate student he looked hard at paintings and sculpture in the Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven, Connecticut. Our interest in Jesus’ past cannot be separated from one’s encounter with his presence in our contemporary existence. [2] Yet there is another level of meaning that the layering of the two figures invites. When men yield up the exclusive privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon. Titus Kaphar, Shadows of Liberty, 2016. Purchased with a gift from Ellen and Stephen Susman, B.A. Kaphar, who signed the cover of . In Ascension, Kaphar invokes iconic 15th century religious imagery of the crucified Christ to reveal insights into the social and cultural positions of the contemporary black male athlete. Mr. Kaphar’s etched portraits appear behind hand-redacted legal complaints filed by the Civil Rights Corps. Another really wonderful painting by Titus Kaphar, creative genius indeed. What is the story here? He has written the following piece to accompany the work. The parting image is a large Jerome Project painting of Mr. Betts featuring flecks of gold-leaf shimmering in the tar. A blitzkrieg tour of some of the artist’s favorite haunts started with gelato by an artisanal confectioner, followed by a chaser of barbecued pork ribs. Now the museum is tackling the issue in an unusual way. The folds of a Thomas Jefferson portrait gracefully fall, and behind it we see an African woman bathing; her gaze at once determined, curious and solemn, as if she knows that she’s only just now being seen, but it’s already too late to matter.