with Tiarra Brown, Independent Scholar and Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Free with Museum Admission

Drawing on examples from the special exhibition, Object Lessons in American Art, this talk examines how American artist Titus Kaphar addresses the colonial attachments to slavery and the myth of benevolent slave masters. Uniting art-historical analysis with archival documents, the lecture traces the history of six African American slaves to a former president of Princeton University. The lecture will also explore Titus Kaphar as a contemporary African American artist and his artistic process of “torturing a painting” to embrace the physicality of the object as well as the violence the work ultimately projects.

Image: Courtesy of Tiarra Brown.

Object Lessons in American Art is organized by the Princeton University Art Museum.

This exhibition is made possible by the leadership support of the Terra Foundation for American Art.

At the Florence Griswold Museum, support comes from the Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts, HSB, The Aeroflex Foundation, The David T. Langrock Foundation, Mrs. Kathryn Parsons and Mr. J. Geddes Parsons, Mr. Wayne Harms and Mrs. Barbara Harms, WSHU Public Radio, as well as donors to the Museum’s Annual Fund.