A series of digital collages from Ben Kaplan's "Documentia."
Documentia
Local multidisciplinary artist Ben Kaplan never knew that his dad could paint. Growing up, his dad was a blue-collar worker—a truck driver who enjoyed Nascar and avidly supported his artistic kids. However, after their father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Kaplan’s sister sent him some 5-by-7-inch notecards and a set of watercolors. With the new materials in hand, he began to create.
“[My dad] was laying all of these images out, and they’re full of themes and color,” Kaplan says. “It was like he had this thing in him the whole time, but we didn’t see it until right at the end.”
Some of those watercolors will be featured at the entrance of Kaplan’s new exhibition, Documentia, on view now through November 26 at the Kranzberg Arts Foundation. The project is a series of 25 digital collages created to better understand the dementia mind.
“I watched as my grandfather, my grandmother, and my dad navigated Alzheimer’s, Lewy body dementia, and Parkinson’s, respectively,” Kaplan says. “As I witnessed what I would call the destruction of their personalities—their vitality, their short-term memory—there was also this embrace of the interior world, where their long-term memories were intact.”
One of Kaplan's father's watercolor paintings. Courtesy of Ben Kaplan.
Although Kaplan describes this process as “incredibly brutal,” he also noticed that his relatives experienced lifelike recollections almost akin to time travel. Details from the distant past came vividly to the surface, while the present moment was often no longer accessible. With Documentia, Kaplan says he wanted to conceptualize “what a collision of the shards of these various memories might visually look like—what if you could make and remake memories?”
The exhibition comes after several years of development. Kaplan first imagined the concept more than a decade ago and spent around five years creating the final 25 pieces. Once he understood that he was using the art to engage with his dad, he says, “things started to fall into place.” Each work is titled with a place and a year, and they encapsulate moments from Kaplan’s past with his family.
Documentia began as a means through which Kaplan and his family could start to heal. Now, he says, he hopes the exhibition gives other caregivers a sense of community.
“[I hope it] offers something to those people,” Kaplan says. “Like a head nod and a hug to the work that they do, the experience that they’re going through, their own journey and also the journey they’re on with the person who has the disease.”
