Titus Kaphar: Exhibiting Forgiveness

Titus Kaphar's exhibition Exhibiting Forgiveness is on at the Minneapolis Institute of Art through January 3, 2027. It's taking over the Bell Family Decorative Arts Court at 2400 Third Avenue South, and it's free to enter.

The show brings together nine paintings Kaphar created for his feature film, Exhibiting Forgiveness, which is also the exhibition's title. Among them is Do You Remember Douglas Street?, a piece the museum has added to its permanent collection. Kaphar is an American artist, born in 1976, who works across painting, installation, and sculpture to look at historical memory, often drawing from the canonical sources of Western art history. This particular body of work comes from his first narrative full-length film, a semi-autobiographical story about Tarrell, a Black painter who tries to work through the trauma of his past through his art, only to be thrown off course by an unexpected visit from his estranged father. The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2024 and was released in October 2024 to critical acclaim.

Walking through the exhibition is meant to mirror Tarrell's own journey toward recognition, understanding, and acceptance. If you want to see the paintings in the context they were made for, the film is running in monthly screenings throughout the show's run in the Pillsbury Auditorium. There's also a Rizzoli book that goes with the exhibition, filled with hundreds of film stills and paintings that document the movie from script to screen.

Between the paintings in the Decorative Arts Court and the screenings in the auditorium, you can see the work from two different angles—the individual canvases and the film they were created for. The exhibition runs from September 10, 2026, through January 3, 2027, and admission is free.