Titus Kaphar's Shifting the Gaze, 2017

Painting is a visual language where everything in the painting is meaningful, is important, is coded. But sometimes, because of the compositional hierarchy, it's hard to see other things. - Titus Kaphar

In 2017, Titus Kaphar hosted a TED talk whose title was "Can art amend history?" It's an impassioned speech during which he tells the story of how he first came to engage with art and some the struggles that went with it. Do look it up.

While on stage, Kaphar unveils a copy he had made of a Frans Hals' Family Group in a Landscape and starts to forcefully paint over the figures of the white sitters, making statements about the messages conveyed by their depiction with each brushstroke. Once the smallest and least noticeable character in the painting, so much so that he almost disappeared into the background, the boy is now the main focus of the composition. This is how Kaphar encourages us to shift our gaze, by drawing our attention to the overlooked, the forgotten by art history, in this case the Black family servant, unsurprisingly the only one who's not smiling.

Because I am a bit of a nerd, I took the time to read the blurb on the Thyssen-Bornemisza website. We find out about Hals, his brilliant skills, the provenance of the painting and how the couple holding hands is supposed to represent faithfulness (no, really?). The curator then waxes lyrical about Hals' brushwork, the 'vitality and optimism' with which he painted his sitters and the 'marvellous rendering of the husband’s boots'. Even the dog gets a mention. Guess what, the Black boy is all but invisible.

I am grateful to Lisa Small, Senior Curator at the Brooklyn Museum for introducing me to Titus' work and vision.

#tituskaphar #contemporaryart #blackartist #shiftingthegaze #brooklynmuseum #artblog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

Titus Kaphar (b.1976) Shifting the Gaze, 2017

© Brooklyn Museum

Frans Hals Family Group in a Landscape, 1645 - 1648 © Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Amy Sherald's portrait of Breonna Taylor

It's been 176 days since Breonna Taylor was killed. Breonna was 26-year-old, she worked as an emergency room technician and was on the frontline in the battle against COVID-19. She was struck down by at least 8 shots fired by Louisville Metro Police Department officers executing a so-called no-knock warrant.

Amy Sherald (b.1973) is no stranger to telling stories about Black people. For 20 years she has been doing so in her unique and deceptively understated realist style. Her work gained recognition in 2016 when she became the first woman and first African American to win the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, an accolade that led to her painting Michelle Obama's portrait for the National Portrait Gallery in 2018.

Sherald's tribute to Taylor is the portait of a confident-looking young woman in a stunning blue dress. The painting includes heartbreaking details, such as the engagement ring Breonna never got to wear because she was killed before her boyfriend could propose. In sharp contrast to Breonna's self-assured depiction, this acts a symbolic reminder of the future she and her loved ones were robbed of. In her interview to Vanity Fair, whose September issue cover this was made for, Sherald explains that this portrait is a "contribution to the moment and to activism -- I wanted this image to stand as a piece of inspiration to keep fighting for justice for her."

It's been 176 days since Breonna Taylor was killed. No arrests have been made.

#breonnataylor #policebrutality #justiceforbreonna #sayhername #blm #blacklivesmatter #amysherald #contemporaryart #artblog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

© Amy Sherald.

Photograph by Joseph Hyde courtesy of Vanity Fair.

Carrie Mae Weems' The Kitchen Table Series (1990)

"I think that most work that’s made by black artists is considered to be about blackness. [Laughs.] Unlike work that’s made by white artists, which is assumed to be universal at its core." - Carrie Mae Weems

How many assumptions do we make every time we look at a piece of art? How much of of our own experience do we project? And does the artwork then become more about what we want it or need it to be? Weems' statement is eye-opening and it made me reflect about my way of approaching art made by black artists.

The Kitchen Table Series is a fundamentally universal body of work in that it tells the story of all women, not just black women. Weems takes us on an exploration of the female experience seen through the domestic space, where women have belonged, ruled and suffered for thousands of years. As I was scrolling through these beautiful black & white images, I was struck by the intensity of each of these moments; the things that are being said and, perhaps more poignantly, the ones that are left unsaid. Weems calls it a war and in each snapshot she tells a story of stereotypes, social constructs, relationship and family dynamics with the burden of their expectations, the everyday duties and struggles. Weems breaks down those domestic walls and allows us to take a peek into her own investigations inside these spaces. What we see is a picture that most women may recognise as painfully familiar, as if looking in a mirror.

Thirty years on, these seminal staged snapshots are still current, and I suspect they will be 30, 60, 90 years from now. They are not just universal, but also of historical significance as and they speak to every woman about female representation, the reality of her own life and the role she occupies at home, as well as in society.

#carriemaeweems #femaleartist #blackart #photography #artblog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

All photos © Carrie Mae Weems.