On the code switch podcast we think about race and identity all the time.

On a recent episode we try to make sense of the devastating violence in Gaza

by turning to James Baldwin, the writer and intellectual who thought a lot about what was happening in Israel during his lifetime.

His words speak to the present in unexpected ways.

Hear how they might help you think through it too,

on the Code Switch Podcast podcast only from NPR.

This is Fresh Air, I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today, contemporary painter, sculptor, and installation

artist Titus Kefar, is known for taking classical forms of art and

deconstructing them by cutting, crumbling, shredding, stitching, tarring, twisting,

and binding to reveal hidden truths that challenge historical narratives.

His art provokes, forcing the viewer to confront the erasure of black Americans from our historical

narrative.

Take his 2014 painting behind the myth of benevolence, a portrait of Thomas Jefferson peeling

a way to reveal Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman that Jefferson owned. His 2020 time magazine cover, A Nagolus a by cutting into the canvas. The image references George Floyd, calling out for his mother

during his arrest and final moments. Kefar, whose paintings and art installations can be found

at some of the world's most prestigious museums,

has now taken his vision to the big screen, deconstructing his own life with his directorial

debut, a raw and deeply personal film titled Exhibiting Forgiveness.

It's about a celebrated painter whose carefully constructed world unravels when his estranged

father, a recovering addict seeking redemption, suddenly reappears in his life.

It's a searing exploration of forgiveness, asking us who deserves it, who owes it, and at what cost.

Titus, welcome to Fresh Air.

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