Blog #3, Kaphar and Southan’s Opposing Views

After reading Southan’s work, one can come to the conclusion that he believes in individuals working to improve society by changing their own actions. This though process is called “Effective Altruism”, and Southan jokingly describes followers of this movement as “Super Hardcore Do-Gooders”.

Throughout Southan’s “Is Art a Waste of Time?”, Southan consistently emphasizes the point that physically doing good is more valuable than making art or producing other non-tangible goods, which he believes have less impact for the better, since they cannot be directly given to the needy, or used to improve society. In his TED Talk interview, Titus Kaphar stands opposite of Southan’s belief and promotes the idea that through artwork, or in his case “Altering” artwork, one can affect society for the better. Kaphar uses artwork as a way to “gloss-over” society’s past wrongdoings and in turn, changing historical paintings, monuments, etc. He then goes into detail of one piece that he re-painted. The original artwork consisted of a typical European aristocratic family, with a father in the foreground, wife beside him, and children surrounding them. Included in this painting is a young black child, probably a slave. Kaphar then describes his rendition, whereby he paints over the white family in the picture with a slightly translucent paint, and explains how this is supposed to shift our gaze. He then explains that the point of this is not to eradicate this history, but in his words to “Shift your gaze just slightly.”

That sure shifts your gaze “Just Slightly”

Instead of trying to make a difference in a tangible way, Kaphar wastes time making “his versions” of historical paintings, while attempting to say that these changes aren’t about eradication. Slavery was an awful institution that affected millions of people worldwide, but the historical remnants of its existence are what reminds us of how terrible a system it was, and keeps us from ever going back. It brings the quote from George Santayana to mind, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Titus Kaphar’s ideas on how to make a difference stand in stark comparison to those of the Effective Altruism movement.

-JMR