History in the Making: Titus Kaphar Cuts up to Rebuild

Michelle Carlson
Art in America
May 20, 2009

History has a certain way of being selfish-the past is often understood through its inequities and linear narratives, static lines marching forward that are capped by dates, deaths, and wars -- by way of the winners and occasionally, the losers. Personal and collective trauma can be difficult, if not impossible to articulate, as many are left out (sometimes, on purpose). When those who have lived through history are gone and the voices of their retelling have long faded past fables and cautionary tales, how will those lessons be recounted? Will they fall into the vast fissures of histories lost? In "History in the Making," on view at the Seattle Art Museum, artist Titus Kaphar's sculptural paintings challenge canonical representations of history and memory by collapsing past into present.

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