Further explore the exhibition’s themes of semi-visibility through a slow-looking exercise related to this work.

Transcript
Narrator: This work by Titus Kaphar, "The Jerome Project (Asphalt and Chalk) III" from 2014, is about 4 feet high by 3 feet wide. Kaphar uses chalk on asphalt paper to create layered portraits, using mugshots of different incarcerated men who are all named Jerome. This is not one man but a community portrait representing Black men, who are over-incarcerated in the United States.

Thin white lines against the solid black background create a stark layered outline of multiple faces and shoulders, filling the page and leaving only a few inches of empty space around the upper-left and right sides and top edge of the paper. Subtle white shadowing on the forehead, neck, and shoulders adds nuance and personality to the portrait. The whites of their eyes shine, the brightest points in the portraits, gazing out toward the viewer.

Overlapping lines and facial features convey movement, adding to the impression that these are multiple men of different sizes that don’t quite align perfectly in the portraits. Multiple mouths, noses, and necks are stacked vertically and slightly to the right. White shading indicates facial hair on some of the men. A second set of shoulders float a few inches above the first, layered vertically. And multiple pairs of eyes are slightly adjacent to each other. There is an air of tilting or nodding that’s created by the layering.

With the darkness of the background, layering, and subtle white outlining, Kaphar encourages the viewer to look closely at this communal portrait, acknowledging the men looking back.

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