Kitimbwa Sabuni, spokesperson for the National Afro-Swedish
Association, probably said it best when he described this incident to a
Swedish paper as a "racist spectacle."
Sweden's minister of culture, Adelsohn Liljeroth, participated in an art installation that took place at Stockholm's
Moderna Museet in connection with World Art Day on April 15.
The
Local reports that as part of the event, which was reportedly meant to
highlight the issue of female circumcision, Liljeroth began cutting a
large cake shaped like a black woman, symbolically starting at the
clitoris, in a ceremony that has sparked outrage and prompted calls for
her dismissal.
"According to the Moderna Museet, the 'cake party'
was meant to problematize female circumcision, but how that is
accomplished through a cake representing a racist caricature of a black
woman complete with 'black face' is unclear," Sabuni said in a
statement. He went on to say that the mere fact that the minister
participated in the event, which he argued was also marked by
"cannibalistic" overtones, betrays her "incompetence and lack of
judgment." "Her participation, as she laughs, drinks and eats cake,
merely adds to the insult against people who suffer from racist taunts
and against women affected by circumcision," he added.
Liljeroth
reportedly defended her actions, saying, "I understand quite well that
this is provocative and that it was a rather bizarre situation."
"Bizarre" would be an understatement. You have to see -- and hear -- the footage of this horrifying "cake party" to believe it.
---------------------------------
Afro-Swedish Artist Makode AJ Linde Claims His "Clitoridectomy Cake" is an AntiRacist Artwork!
This is supposedly an anti-racist work of art from the
Afro-Swedish artist Makode AJ Linde. The installation was presented in
connection with World Art Day, arranged by KRO and IAA at the Museum of
Modern art in Sweden.
Here is an article in which Makode AJ Linde explains his art and the background to this artwork.
Controversial Afro-Swedish Artist Speaks, "It's a Disturbing Picture But It's Also a Disturbing Subject"
A photo of the Swedish minister feeding the artist some of the cake (image via friatider.se via Facebook)
In the last few days, Afro-Swedish artist Makode Linde has learned the power of the viral web.
His controversial
cake performance
at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet has ricocheted around the world and has
garnered reactions of all types from support of his edgy gesture to
raise awareness about female genital mutilation to the denunciation of
the artist and the Swedish culture minister pictured in the event photos
as racists. Linde spoke to Hyperallergic about the controversy and he
was happy to explain the context for the piece and how commenters have
not wanted to delve deeper into the work and what it has to say.
Artist Makode Linde speaking to Al Jazeera via Skype (via aljazeera.com)
As
one of the only Afro-Swedish artists it is perhaps no surprise that
Linde has made race a central focus of his body of work. His
Afromantics series, which began in 2004, totals roughly 700 sculptures. In
Afromantics,
his best known works, Linde paints black face on Western cultural
icons. They are obviously about identity but with a shadowy sense of
humor that feel discomforting in their absurdity. As one Swedish
newspaper put it in 2009, “
Linde Questions With Humor.”
“Within
my art I try to raise a discussion and awareness about black identity
and the diversity of it,” Linde says. “The [recent] discussions [about
my cake piece] have been mostly if I or the culture minister are racist
or not. I think it is a shallow analysis of the work. It’s easy to take
any image and put it in the wrong context.”
Linde’s cake was one
of five artist cakes — the others were by Peter Johansson, Lisa
Jonasson, Marianne Lindberg De Geer and Galleri Syster — that doubled as
an art installation at an event last Sunday which marked the 75th
anniversary of the Swedish Artists Federation at Stockholm’s Moderna
Museeet. It was his first showing at the famed modern art museum and he
decided to build on his
Afromantics series, which he describes
as taking “mass cultural symbols … and then I give them a new black life
by giving them black face. In the process robbing them of their
original identity.”
“You can’t see the identity of the individual
representations when you see them all together in blackface,” he says
about the usual reactions he gets when he exhibits a grouping of his
Afromantics sculptures. “You rob them of something and you force them to be something else.”
The
artist is happy with the Modern Museet performance, which he says “went
off the exact way I wanted it.” He explains that the Swedish culture
minister’s presence was only announced to the artist 20 minutes before
the event began but he was supportive of the idea of her cutting his
cake, which featured him as the head. He thinks the images of his work
can stand alone but her presence added a powerful element. He doesn’t
understand the fixation that commenters have on the white figures all
around and he seems legitimately surprised by the aggressiveness of
commenters towards the audience. “I think it is wrong to call it racist
because they are white women and I’m the only black person there,” he
says.
A view of the cake after party goers took a piece. (via the artist's Facebook page)
The
whole incident raises questions about cultural identity and the
internet. In Sweden, Linde says, the project was mostly understood in
the art world context it was performed. “In Stockholm, where I am from,
the art world knows [about my work]. Ninety-nine percent of my pieces
have a anti-racist context,” he says. ”I’m the first one to admit that
it’s a disturbing picture but it’s also a disturbing subject. One of the
main roles of art is to talk about these things and make people
confront them in themselves.”
He says he was conscious of how it
was presented and he worked on figuring out ways that will allow more
people to see the image and how it will be transmitted to a bigger
audience. He doesn’t appear to have been prepared for the online outcry.
Linde
made an active decision to change the form of a polite cake ceremony
into one that would generate awareness and discussion. “I wanted to
change the form of what was going on and scream, react and beg for
mercy,” he says.
The cake was created based on African fertility
symbolism and he thinks he was able to convey the strength of the
emotions. “Some people actually get it when I explain and show my other
work. People try to lecture me on the history of blackface, I’m very
aware of where it comes from. People seem to think I am unaware of
postcolonialism but I’m facing the issue every day,” he says. “I think
this issue is very different when you live in Stockholm versus in New
York. There aren’t that many Afro-Scandinavian artists and it is
important that people talk about this.”
Linde doesn’t understand
the reaction of the African Swedish National Association, which has
asked the Swedish Culture Minister to resign. Linde says the group made
no attempt to talk to him about the work and were very disinterested in
what he had to say as an Afro-Swede. “I invited them to my studio to
have a talk and show my art. They were not interested in having a
dialogue with me,” he says. “When I met one person from the group [on
another occasion] he said he was not interested. I asked him if he knew
any Afro-Swedish artists, and he said ‘no,’ and then I asked ‘Why aren’t
you interested in the one and only Afro-Swedish artist?’”
Some works form Linde's "Afromantics" series (via urbanlife.se)
Linde’s
dilemma with the cultural group should sound familiar to anyone who is
part of cultural community whose spokespeople are often the most
conservative and socially rigid flag bearers of a community. Often these
cultural groups represent a smaller swathe of their communities than
they claim to and they consider any examination or challenge of their
cultural traditions as an attack.
The artist says the performance
made him feel very vulnerable but he also considers the cake a sculpture
much like the other works in his
Afromantics series. He
doesn’t think the Swedish cultural minister should resign. “She did
nothing wrong, she was cool and she went for it,” he says. “She is
strongly opinionated against racism. She seemed aware the kind of
attention this would generate.”
Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth released a strongly worded
statement about the performance that clearly said, “Art must be allowed to provoke.” It goes on to say:
Our
national cultural policy assumes that culture shall be an independent
force based on the freedom of expression. Art must therefore be allowed
room to provoke and pose uncomfortable questions. As I emphasised in my
speech on Sunday, it is therefore imperative that we defend freedom of
expression and freedom of art —even when it causes offence.
I am
the first to agree that Makode Linde’s piece is highly provocative since
it deliberately reflects a rasist [sic] stereotype. But the actual
intent of the piece — and Makode Linde’s artistry — is to challenge the
traditional image of racism, abuse and oppression through provocation.
While the symbolism in the piece is despicable, it is unfortunate and
highly regrettable that the presentation has been interpreted as an
expression of racism by some. The artistic intent was the exact
opposite.
In our interview, the artist sounded a
little confused by the online outrage. “If people can get this upset
from a woman cutting a cake, can’t they use that energy towards the real
battle towards female genital multilation,” he says. “I do understand
it is a serious subject and when you mix a serious subject with a light
topic like cake people can get upset, but I like humor in my work
because [the topics are] depressing and something I have to deal with
everyday. People drop their defenses when they can joke about
something.”
He also explained that he often infuses his work with a
strain of Swedish humor that is very dark and cynical. “From my point
of view this humor is a way to cope with horrible facts,” he says. “When
I’m trying to tell my friends stories of horrible things I often use
some humor to make it palatable.” He says Swedes, though he points out
he doesn’t claim to speak for all Swedes, don’t like to take themselves
too seriously.
Aside from the racial politics of his art work,
Linde’s cake performance has also generated much needed debate about
genital mutilation around the web. According to the
World Health Organization,
100–140 million women have experienced female genital mutilation in the
world and 92 million of those individuals are in Africa. The procedure
is an arcane cultural relic that continues to emotionally and physically
scar girls and young women.
What is lost on many commenters is
that no matter what Linde has done, the acts of genital mutilation,
which the piece was meant to highlight, are more grotesque than his
performance could ever be. One
New York Times article points out the gruesome realities:
“About
15 percent of those who undergo genital mutilation, mainly women in the
Horn of Africa, suffer the most dangerous and extreme version,
infibulation.
… All types of female circumcision have huge
psychological and physical dangers. Some girls bleed to death during the
operation, or die of tetanus or infection shortly after. But for
infibulated women, the dangers are even greater. Many infibulated women
suffer constant infections and other health problems because urine and
blood back up. Their husbands must bring a knife to their wedding night
to cut them open. Childbirth often is fatal for infibulated women and
their babies, and their wounds make them much more vulnerable to the
AIDS virus.”
Other commenters who have been critical
of Linde’s performance also have a lack of understanding of Sweden and
the cultural context in any discussion of the work. Sweden is over 95%
“white” by American definitions of race, which means that almost any
audience in Stockholm will be predominantly white so the image that is
at the top of this article and being transmitted around the web is not
out of the ordinarily for its racial make up. In our conversation, Linde
also touches upon another issue that Americans don’t often discuss, the
fact that their culture is often imposed on others and shapes their
relationship to their local culture.
“If it is something that
Americans take serious is postcolonialism and slavery and ‘not going
there’ and making a bad joke about it. In Sweden, we don’t have the same
slave trade history. But the same image of the slave dominates the
images of Africans in Sweden but it is an imposed image from outside.
That’s also true for black Americans but for Afro-Swedes we look at it
as one more degree removed.”
“Black American culture dominates the
image of black culture in Sweden but there aren’t that many
similarities between Afro-Swedish culture and black American culture.
I’m making a generalization but it’s a reality that our image in our own
culture is being influenced by the world outside,” he says.
In a Skype interview with
Al Jazeera Linde
made a point that we all should remember when confronted with stark and
disturbing images that are hard to register mentally and emotionally:
“The vastness of social media encourages misinterpretation when pulled out of its context.”
On
the flip side, the vastness of social media can also raise awareness
about an issue that continues to torture millions of people the world
over. It’s a double-edged sword and one that Linde is fully aware of
nowadays.
A Few More Fotos from the NiggerCake/ClitoridectomyCake "Celebration"
Artist Makode Linde being fed "ClitCake" by Swedish Culture Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth.
Even Swedish Children watched this racist/sexist fiasco.
Swedish Culture Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth Begins the ClitCake/NiggerCake Ceremony.
Sharing the NiggerCake/ClitCake with Fellow Elites.
AfroSwedish Artist Artist Makode Linde uses his own head for the NiggerCake/ClitCake and screams everytime the cake is cut.
SOUL IS HEAVY
