“Redaction: A Project by Titus Kaphar and Reginald Dwayne Betts” Exhibition

MOMA PS1

This event has ended.

MoMA PS1 presents the first public installation of The Redaction, a collaboration between visual artist and filmmaker Titus Kaphar (b.1976, Kalamazoo, MI) and memoirist, poet and attorney Reginald Dwayne Betts (b. 1980, Suitland, MD). On view from March 31 through May 5, 2019, Redaction: A Project by Titus Kaphar and Reginald Dwayne Betts centers on a presentation of more than 30 new prints and a series of public programs that examine the issue of money bail, the condition of the state and federal court system by which those arrested, but unable to afford bail, remain incarcerated even though they have been neither tried nor convicted.

Drawing inspiration and source material from lawsuits filed by the Civil Rights Corps on behalf of people incarcerated because of an inability to pay court fines and fees, The Redaction features poetry by Betts in combination with Kaphar’s etched portraits of incarcerated individuals. Betts utilizes the legal strategy of redaction to craft verse out of legal documents, capturing the complicated and pervasive effects of time spent incarcerated. These poems have been screenprinted by Kaphar onto handmade paper using the Redaction font, a new open-source typeface created for the project. Together, Betts’s poems and Kaphar’s printed portraits blend the voices of poet and artist with those of the plaintiffs and prosecutors, reclaiming these lost narratives and drawing attention to some of the many individuals whose lives have been impacted by mass incarceration.

Redaction: A Project by Titus Kaphar and Reginald Dwayne Betts will be accompanied by a series of presentations that engage with poetry, literature, and language alongside programs that highlight the cash bail system and those victimized by it.

Redaction: A Project by Titus Kaphar and Reginald Dwayne Betts is organized by Sarah Suzuki, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Museum of Modern Art; with Jocelyn Miller, Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1.