For painter Titus Kaphar, forgiveness is 'a weight lifted off of your shoulders'

Contemporary painter, sculptor and installation artist Titus Kaphar is known for taking classical forms of art and deconstructing them to reveal hidden truths that challenge historical narratives. His 2014 painting, "Behind the Myth of Benevolence," for instance, peels away a portrait of Thomas Jefferson to reveal the face of Sally Hemings, a woman who Jefferson enslaved.

Now, with his debut film Exhibiting Forgiveness, Kaphar deconstructs his own life story. The film centers on a celebrated painter whose world unravels when his estranged father, who struggles with addiction, suddenly reappears in his life.

Kaphar says he initially conceived of the project as a documentary. He was visiting his maternal grandmother in Kalamazoo, Mich., and was surprised to see his estranged father sitting on her porch: "Kind of on a whim, I said to my father, 'If you want to talk, let me film you. There's a lot to be accounted for.' And I was hoping he would say no, but he said yes."

Kaphar filmed their conversation, but the resulting documentary was unsatisfying: "I showed it publicly in the theater one time and decided I don't want that in the world," he says.

So he abandoned the documentary project and instead decided to make a feature film that would present his father as a character. The writing process proved to be surprisingly emotional. Kaphar says he had always seen his father as the villain, but writing the character forced him to consider what his father's motivations might have been.

"I gained a compassion, a sympathy for my father that I never had as a young man," he says. "The film, for me, is about generational healing, about how does this generation make sure that our children don't have to carry the same wounds and baggage that we carry? Is there a way for us to leave it here so that they can go on without that burden?"

Interview highlights

On wanting to make a film so that his work would be more accessible to working class, poor and Black communities

I don't question painting. I love that. That's, like, in my heart. It’s one of the things that I know that I was made for, but the reality is … the place I grew up does not look like the place where I am now. And the people who engage with my work often don't come from that world. And let me be clear here. I'm not just talking about race. I'm talking about class as well. I feel blessed to be able to do what I do every day. I mean, I make paintings and people pay me to do that. It's kind of ridiculous. … Museums all over the country have my artwork. But the folks I grew up with, they don't go to the Metropolitan [Museum]. Like, we don't have a Metropolitan in our neighborhood. ... So I felt like I wanted to find some other way to engage with my folks.

Film is a much more democratically accessible medium. You don't have to be a rich man to go to a movie. And nobody makes you feel uncomfortable when you walk into a movie theater. You can just walk in, watch a movie, or eventually you'll be able to watch it in your home. That was incredibly important to me because as I went into more gallery spaces, I recognize how uncomfortable they are. This beautiful, big white space where you are the only Black face in that building. There is some fancy person sitting at the front desk and you don't know, Do I need to pay to get in? ... And then you see these paintings on the wall and you're like, These are interesting, but I don't know anything about them. That kind of elitism that one feels when they're in those spaces doesn't help people connect to the art at all.

On seeing Black men emote and cry in the film

We weren't told that it was OK, that we could cry. That was something that we had to suppress. That was something that it was necessary for us to hold in. We grew up in a kind of a rough spot. You didn't want people to see you [as] weak. That meant you were vulnerable. And if you were vulnerable, the opportunity to take you was there. ... That became another thing I began to understand is, like, ... this was for our protection. And I don't agree with doing that to your children. I have to believe that love and compassion and kindness and care, those things are the things that we offer to our children and that will bring them to a place of peace and wholeness. But at the same time, recognizing that the world that I grew up in, the neighborhood that I grew up in, was fundamentally different from the neighborhood that my children are growing up in.

On chasing his dream to be a painter

There are definitely many times where I felt unwelcome. But ... I wasn't going to allow those feelings or those individuals to stop me from getting what I wanted. And what I wanted was the knowledge, this secret knowledge of how to paint like these people I was seeing in my books. I couldn't figure out how that was happening. I got a brush, I got paint, I got oil — but it's not doing that. So I need to sit at the feet of the masters and figure this out.

On a painting of his being sold for over $1 million on the secondary market

Most folks see those numbers and are like, "Man, Titus is doing really well!" I'm doing all right. But the reality is that secondary market people take those to auction houses. ... The person who bought it [originally], that's the person who makes the money from it. None of that goes back to the artists. None of it. Not a dime. So you might have bought that painting for … $12,000, which was not bad for me at the time. But I think something like five years later it was auctioned off for $1.2 [million].

On his TIME magazine cover, “Analogous Colors,” inspired by George Floyd calling out to his mother as he died  

I was broken-hearted by the words of George Floyd. I was inspired by the words of my mother. And when George Floyd died, I felt like giving up, man. I didn't want to talk to people. I was getting phone calls from folks, like "Come to a public talk here," I said, "I'm not doing that. I'm not I'm not doing that because y'all want me to be, like, hopeful right now. I ain't hopeful." And so I called my mom and I was just talking to her and she wasn't doing well. And my mom was just talking about how she has four sons and all of us have had some kind of run-in with police before that could have ended up exactly the same way. That was the thing that inspired me to make that painting. I was thinking about my mother and her fear of losing her boys.

On forgiveness and reconciliation

We use forgiveness and reconciliation as though they are synonyms. … They're not synonyms. You may find yourself in a situation where you need to forgive somebody who is no longer alive. And in that case, how can there be a reconciliation? You can't do that. …

I think it's important that we recognize that forgiveness, most of the time, has more to do with us than it does to do with them. And so, for me, the kind of forgiveness that this film is talking about is a kind of forgiveness that allows you to unburden yourself and say, "I'm not carrying this anymore. It's too heavy. I'm done with it. You had a debt. You owed me something. You don't owe me no more. I'm good. I'm going to let that go." And in saying that, there is freedom. There's a weight lifted off of your shoulders.

The part that I think we get wrong is I think we assume that that means that you have to continue on the path with that individual. And we often have this idea about forgive and forget. I'm not sure that I believe in that wholly. I mean, sometimes it happens, I suppose. But the reality is oftentimes we are telling victims to forget for the sake of the perpetrators. We have these wounds. We have scars. … I don't think it's a good idea for us to be telling people to forgive and reconcile … when it means that they are putting themselves back in harm's way.

Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.