Titus Kaphar at Gagosian Gallery

Amid vibrantly colored décor from an earlier time period, two sisters hold children who have disappeared in Titus Kaphar’s ‘Not My Burden’ at Gagosian Gallery’s 21st Street space in Chelsea.  A much-anticipated follow-up to select paintings shown online when TIME commissioned a cover from Kaphar after George Floyd’s murder, the exhibition features work in which children have literally been cut out of the canvas, representing the anxiety and fear experienced by Black mothers. (On view through Dec 19th.  Appointments, masks, social distancing, contact info and a health questionnaire are required).

Titus Kaphar, Not My Burden, oil on canvas, 66 x 60 ¼ inches, 2019.

Titus Kaphar at Jack Shainman Gallery

New York artist Titus Kaphar disrupts each of his works, cutting figures out of a canvas to consider the impact of absence, whiting out and redrawing figures or peeling back a layer of canvas to literally reveal a back story. Here, a colonial-era man’s portrait is shredded and stretched to shatter any illusion of a tidy personal narrative. (At Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery through Feb 21st).

Titus Kaphar, Stripes, oil on canvas and nails, 59 ½ x 51 x 1 ½ inches, 2014.

Jean Lowe at McKenzie Fine Art

Jean Lowe’s imagined auction items in her latest exhibition, supposedly culled from historical papers and ephemera, demonstrate the artist’s delightfully absurd sense of humor while poking fun at what might be considered sale-worthy at auction. (At McKenzie Fine Art through Oct 12th).

Jean Lowe, ‘Ephemera (Lost Time),’ acrylic and watercolor on paper, 22 ¼ x 19 ¼ inches, 2013.