EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS — Titus Kaphar Interview

For EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS, his debut narrative feature, renowned artist and MacArthur Fellow Titus Kaphar looked back to the painful, sometimes violent relationship he had with the father, a man struggling with addiction and his own childhood demons. This lyrical, emotionally raw film, populated with Kaphar’s paintings as signs and signals, explores issues of forgiveness, redemption, and quelling the demons of the past in order to embrace the future.

When I spoke with the Kaphar on October 6, 2024, it was just after a screening of EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art sponsored by the Museum of the African Diaspora. My first question was about his own process of forgiving, not excusing, his father, and why forgiveness is not one-size-fits-all.

A soft-spoken man who speaks thoughtfully, Kaphar spoke with decisive eloquence about stopping the cycle of intergenerational violence; finding metaphor in the moment; and the difference between a collector and a patron.

We finished up with the synchronicity of casting his father; how he uses his art to understand the world; the mundane joys of life; and novel ways of becoming multi-lingual.

Kaphar directed from his own script. The film stars André Holland, John Earl Jelks, Andra Day, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Daniel Michael Barriere, Ian Foreman, Matthew Elam, and Jaime Ray Newman.