Exhibiting Forgiveness: Film Screening

Jul 8, 2025 5PM

Isis Theatre, Aspen

Free and open to the public. No ticket purchase required, seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Anderson Ranch is thrilled to kick off our Ranch Week celebration with Aspen’s debut film screening of Exhibiting Forgiveness, a film directed by Titus Kaphar, the recipient of Anderson Ranch’s 2025 International Artist Award. The screening will be directly followed by a Q&A with director Titus Kaphar led by Susan Wrubel, Aspen Film Executive and Artistic Director. This will be the first of many premier public events to celebrate Ranch Week, which takes place July 8-12, 2025.

In 2024, Titus Kaphar made his directorial debut with the film Exhibiting Forgiveness, featuring André Holland as Tarrell Rodin, a painter grappling with childhood trauma and the return of his estranged father. Written and directed by Kaphar and inspired by his own life experiences, the movie builds on the 2023 Exhibiting Forgiveness gallery presentation at Gagosian Beverly Hills, where a series of deeply personal paintings depicting figures, portraits, neighborhood houses, and personal artifacts were presented. These works precede the film and draw from Kaphar’s personal, emotional, and psychological well. By blending traditional oil painting techniques with unconventional mediums, Kaphar provokes conversations about family, community, and memory.

Presented in partnership with:

Special Thanks:

These events are made possible by the generous support of our Ranch Week Co-Chairs, Sherry and Joe Felson, Martha and Richard Finger, Carolyn and Alex Hurst, as well as our Ranch Gala Honorary Host Committee.

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Panel

Titus Kaphar

2025 International Artist Honoree
& Summer Series Speaker

Titus Kaphar is an artist whose paintings, sculptures, and installations examine the history of representation by transforming its styles and mediums with formal innovations to emphasize the physicality and dimensionality of the canvas and materials themselves. His practice seeks to dislodge history from its status as the “past” in order to unearth its contemporary relevance. He cuts, crumples, shrouds, shreds, stitches, tars, twists, binds, erases, breaks, tears, and turns the paintings and sculptures he creates, reconfiguring them into works that reveal unspoken truths about the nature of history. Open areas become active absences; walls enter into the portraits; stretcher bars are exposed; and structures that are typically invisible underneath, behind, or inside the canvas are laid bare to reveal the interiors of the work.  In so doing, Kaphar’s aim is to reveal something of what has been lost and to investigate the power of a rewritten history. Titus Kaphar (b. 1976, Kalamazoo, Michigan) lives and works in New Haven, CT. Kaphar received an MFA from the Yale School of Art and is a distinguished recipient of numerous prizes and awards including a 2018 MacArthur Fellowship, a 2018 Art for Justice Fund grant, a 2016 Robert R. Rauschenberg Artist as Activist grant, and a 2015 Creative Capital grant. Kaphar’s work, Analogous Colors, was featured on the cover of the June 15, 2020 issue of TIME. He gave a TED talk at the annual conference in Vancouver 2017, where he completed a whitewash painting, Shifting the Gaze, onstage. Kaphar’s work has been included in solo exhibitions at Seattle Art Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA PS1 and National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, among others. His work is included in the collections of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; the 21C Museum Collection; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, amongst others. Kaphar’s commitment to social engagement has led him to move beyond traditional modes of artistic expression to establish NXTHVN. NXTHVN is a new national arts model that empowers emerging artists and curators of color through education and access. Through intergenerational mentorship, professional development and cross-sector collaboration, NXTHVN accelerates professional careers in the arts. Now in its fifth year of operation, NXTHVN encourages artists, art professionals, and local entrepreneurs to expand New Haven’s growing creative community.

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Susan Wrubel

Summer Series Moderator

Susan Wrubel is Executive + Artistic Director at Aspen Film. She is a Film Executive with over 25 years of experience in film acquisitions, sales, production, financing, and distribution.  After 11 years in the NY art-house world, Wrubel became VP of Acquisitions + Co-Productions for Paramount Classics in LA in 2004. Wrubel returned to NY in 2010, consulting for several internationally focused companies in content acquisition and aggregation, and packaging and securing production finance for independent producers. She is an executive producer on MAGGIE’S PLAN, I’LL SLEEP WHEN I’M DEAD, and the Oscar®-winning STILL ALICE. Wrubel is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

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