Palo Alto Art Center and Museum of the African Diaspora present

‍Black Creativity and Mentorship: A Conversation Between Diana Pumpelly Bates and Titus Kaphar

‍Join acclaimed San Jose artist Diana Pumpelly Bates and internationally recognized artist Titus Kaphar for a conversation about Black creativity, artistic inspiration, and the importance of mentorship. This conversation will be moderated by The Black Index exhibition curator Bridget R. Cooks.

This program is presented in conjunction with The Palo Alto Art Center's current exhibition, The Black Index, on view May 1 - August 18, 2021.

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. 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 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.

Diana Pumpelly Bates is a sculptor and public artist working in bronze, iron, and steel. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA; The Triton Museum, Santa Clara, CA; the Oliver Art Center at California College of Arts and Crafts; the National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, Tennessee; and John Jay College, New York. She has completed several public art commissions for transportation agencies in the region, and a number of Public Art Programs in Northern California.

She also exhibits in galleries and has served on numerous consultant teams, advisory committees, and review panels.

Bridget R. Cooks fills a joint appointment in the Department of African American Studies and the Department of Art History at the University of California, Irvine. Cooks' research focuses on African American art and culture, Black visual culture, museum criticism, film, feminist theory and post-colonial theory. In 2002, she earned her doctorate degree in the Visual and Cultural Studies Program at the University of Rochester.

She has received a number of awards, grants and fellowships for her work including the prestigious James A. Porter & David C. Driskell Book Award in African American Art History, and the Henry Luce Dissertation Fellowship in American Art.

She has also curated several art exhibitions including "The Art of Richard Mayhew" at the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, 2009-2010; Grafton Tyler Brown: Exploring California (2018) at the Pasadena Museum of California Art; and Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective (2019) at the California African American Museum (CAAM).