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Titus Kaphar
Confront bias and reshape institutional narratives with Titus Kaphar, visual artist and diversity thought leader. Titus works with organizations to recognize systemic erasure, challenge inherited narratives, and build inclusive culture. MacArthur Fellow whose work appears in MoMA and the National Gallery of Art.
Titus Kaphar is a visual artist whose work confronts the erasure of Black people from Western art history, using paint, canvas, and sculpture to make hidden narratives impossible to ignore.
Kaphar received a MacArthur Fellowship for deconstructing the literal structure of canonical artworks to expose the absence of people of color. His painting for the cover of TIME magazine during the Ferguson protests became one of the most recognized images of the American social justice movement. His work hangs in major collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Art.
Kaphar's approach goes beyond critique. He physically cuts, folds, and reshapes historical paintings to show audiences how artistic traditions have shaped public memory. His talks translate this method into a framework anyone can use to recognize bias embedded in the institutions and images that surround us daily. He makes the invisible visible, giving audiences practical ways to question what they see and what has been left out.
Audiences leave Kaphar's presentations with a sharper eye for how visual culture reinforces inequality, concrete strategies for challenging inherited narratives in their own fields, and a renewed sense of what art can accomplish when it refuses to look away from history.
Book Titus Kaphar to give your audience the tools to see what they have been trained to overlook.
Kaphar's MacArthur-recognized work deconstructing canonical art translates directly into a framework for identifying institutional bias your teams can apply immediately. His method of making erasure visible gives leaders practical tools to challenge inherited narratives across operations, culture, and external positioning.
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frequently asked questions
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Titus Kaphar physically cuts, folds, and reshapes historical paintings during presentations to demonstrate how artistic traditions have shaped public memory and embedded bias, translating this method into a framework for recognising what has been omitted from inherited narratives.
Titus Kaphar speaks on the erasure of Black people from Western art history, bias embedded in visual culture and institutions, and the role of art in reshaping public memory. He received a MacArthur Fellowship for his practice of physically deconstructing canonical artworks to expose the absence of people of colour, and his painting for the cover of TIME magazine during the Ferguson protests became one of the most recognised images of the American social justice movement.
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