In Latin, “vesper” means “evening star” or, more commonly, just “evening” — a junction of night and day. Although it refers to a surname in the Contemporary Arts Center’s new exhibit from Titus Kaphar, The Vesper Project, the word feels right at home. Polarities coexist at every turn in The Vesper Project, a culmination of the lost storylines of the Vespers, a 19th-century New England family who “passed” as white despite their mixed heritage, which made them “negro” in the eyes of the law.
Kaphar’s themes are lofty. Racial inequality, criminal justice, fractured identities and the way we traverse the fluxes of time, space and history are braided — sometimes literally — into his work. Read more here.
THE VESPER PROJECT is on view at the Contemporary Arts Center through Oct. 11. More information: contemporaryartscenter.org.
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2015.