2015.11
The Jerome Project (Asphalt and Chalk) XI
Artist
Titus Kaphar
(Kalamazoo, MI, 1976 - )
Title
The Jerome Project (Asphalt and Chalk) XI
Creation Date
2015
Century
21st century
Dimensions
48 1/4 x 36 13/16 in. (122.56 x 93.5 cm)
Object Type
drawing
Creation Place
North America, United States
Medium and Support
chalk on Asphalt paper
Credit Line
Museum Purchase, Barbara Cooney Porter Fund
Copyright
This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s
Copyright Terms and Conditions.
Accession Number
2015.11
This is an unconventional portrait of three young black men whose tragic deaths prompted a national conversation around racial profiling, policing, and lethal violence: Trayvon Martin (died February 26, 2012), Michael Brown (died August 9, 2014), and Tamir Rice (died November 22, 2014). Based on private photographs widely published in the aftermaths of their deaths, Kaphar’s drawing outlines their faces in white chalk on asphalt-coated roofing paper, thereby blurring the boundary between representational portrait conventions and common police documentation: the demarcation of victims on the crime scene with chalk outlines. The faces refuse to form a composite portrait, instead insisting upon the particular characteristics that defined each young man, and thus resisting the false—and dangerous—conflation of multiple individuals into a stereotype.