Titus Kaphar’s ‘Exhibiting Forgiveness’ Moves From Screen to Museum

The Minneapolis Institute of Art will open the first museum exhibition to unite Titus Kaphar’s paintings with his feature film “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” extending the artist’s deeply personal story from cinema into the gallery.

Opening Sept. 12, the free exhibition will present nine paintings Kaphar created for the film, including the museum’s recently acquired “Do You Remember Douglas Street?” The show runs through Jan. 3, 2027, in Mia’s Bell Family Decorative Arts Court.

In the film, André Holland plays Tarrell, an acclaimed painter whose life is disrupted by the return of his estranged father. Kaphar made works at different stages of completion so the act of painting would feel credible on camera, and he trained Holland to work convincingly in the studio.

Those objects now move beyond their supporting role. Seen together in a museum, they can be approached as paintings in their own right while still carrying the memories, family conflict and questions of healing embedded in the film.

Kaphar’s practice has long reworked familiar images and historical narratives to expose what conventional portraits leave out. “Exhibiting Forgiveness” brought that method into narrative filmmaking, where control had to be shared with actors, cinematographers and other collaborators.

The Mia exhibition completes another turn in that process: personal experience became words, images and film, and the film’s paintings now return to a public art space. The result is less a display of props than a rare look at how one story can change when it moves between mediums.

The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2024 and was released later that year. Moving from painting into cinema required Kaphar to share control with actors, cinematographers, editors and producers, turning personal material into a collective form.

Mia acquired “Do You Remember Douglas Street?” in March 2026. The work depicts a home connected to the protagonist’s childhood at night, with an attached smaller canvas adding a physical layer to its treatment of memory and lasting emotional harm.

Monthly film screenings and an accompanying Rizzoli publication will extend the exhibition beyond the gallery installation. Visitors can experience the movement in both directions: the film gives the paintings narrative time, while the museum restores their scale, surfaces and stillness.