Ideas worth spreading

Can art amend history?

1,967,310 views |

Titus Kaphar |

TED2017

• April 2017

Artist Titus Kaphar makes paintings and sculptures that wrestle with the struggles of the past while speaking to the diversity and advances of the present. In an unforgettable live workshop, Kaphar takes a brush full of white paint to a replica of a 17th-century Frans Hals painting, obscuring parts of the composition and bringing its hidden story into view. There's a narrative coded in art like this, Kaphar says. What happens when we shift our focus and confront unspoken truths?

Artist Titus Kaphar makes paintings and sculptures that wrestle with the struggles of the past while speaking to the diversity and advances of the present. In an unforgettable live workshop, Kaphar takes a brush full of white paint to a replica of a 17th-century Frans Hals painting, obscuring parts of the composition and bringing its hidden story into view. There's a narrative coded in art like this, Kaphar says. What happens when we shift our focus and confront unspoken truths?

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Learn about the NXTHVN (NextHaven), an arts incubator in New Haven, Connecticut, founded by Titus Kaphar.

Donate to NXTHVN. For more information on how to support NXTHVN, please contact us directly helloatnxthvn.com.

About the speaker

Titus Kaphar

See speaker profile

Titus Kaphar's artworks interact with the history of art by appropriating its styles and mediums.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Learn about the NXTHVN (NextHaven), an arts incubator in New Haven, Connecticut, founded by Titus Kaphar.

Donate to NXTHVN. For more information on how to support NXTHVN, please contact us directly helloatnxthvn.com.