To Be Sold,

2018

On July 31, 1766, the newspaper headline “To Be Sold” announced the sale of six enslaved persons on the site of Princeton University’s Maclean House as part of the dispersal of the estate of Samuel Finley, fifth president of the University (1761 to 1766). Kaphar’s To Be Sold responds to the archival records of this sale, presenting torn canvas strips of a painted reproduction of that advertisement nailed onto a reproduced painted portrait of Finley. The nails reference Kongo nkisi nkondi power figures, which were used to enforce communal codes of conduct and therefore to resist the imposition of European colonial practices. One of what Kaphar calls “amendments,” To Be Sold is part of the artist’s broader project to revise existing monuments and imagery and to open up new histories and dialogues.