Let me begin debunking this myth with a story:

Growing up, I was quite familiar with the image of Gustav Kilmt’s “Mother and Child.” I had seen this on T-shirts, magnets, tote bags, and greeting cards. I saw pictures of it online. What I did not know until I entered the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, Italy, was that this image is only a detail of Klimt’s painting “The Three Ages of Women.”

I was shocked–hovering just over the shoulder of the beautiful young mother is the bent, time-ravaged body of a grey-haired woman. She haunts the painting, both a loving and protective force (the grandmother?) and an image of the unavoidable fate of the sleeping mother and her child. I had seen the image of the mother and child uncountable times, but I had never before seen this woman. I felt almost angry about having missed the whole story, and I thought about how anyone who did not study art history or happen into this museum may never find out.

I have come to believe that you can have this experience with any work of art: a photograph of a work, no matter how good, will not tell you the whole story. Take, for example, the UMFA’s collection of sculptures, urns, and other objects that are not framed on a wall: You can walk all the way around this one, see the back, see the marks of labor that made it:

Urn (Maya)

That’s something you can’t do online.

Another thing that you can’t do online isn’t as easy to quantify: the experience of wandering the halls in the presence of such history, such beauty. The word I’ve most often heard to describe this is peaceful. If you’re looking at art online, you’ve likely also got a million other tabs and windows open, multi-tasking (as I am now). Lucky me: the galleries are just a few steps away, so I can take a stroll, unplug, and brighten my work day.

Aphrodite with Eros on a dolphin at her side

We have a finite amount of time: the average human life is 28,000 days long. An interesting way of thinking about this comes from the article (and the title!) The Sad Beautiful Fact That We’re Going To Miss Almost Everything. I guess the question becomes about how you want to spend your time. Many people have suggested lists of art to see before you die, but these are scattered around the world! Very few people could afford to visit every piece on every list (not to mention those that are incredible, but haven’t made the list yet, or those that haven’t even been acquired by museums, or even made yet).

It’s tempting to save time (and baggage fees) by looking online, on the database of any museum (like ours). But when we know there is so much to be gained from seeing the work in person, might coming through the doors be a better way to spend your time? To enrich the days we have, however limited?

Maya King in Litter

Even better news: instead of flying all over the world to look at art, or opening a browser, why not just come in to the UMFA? We have art that spans centuries from all over the world. And what better way to celebrate today, World Art Day, than to travel through our galleries?

Whenever I see Klimt’s “Mother and Child” / detail of “The Three Ages of Women,” my favorite part now is the grey tendrils falling just at the shoulder of the sleeping mother. I quite dislike that pop culture and merchandising has eliminated her, but each time I glimpse her grey hair I am brought right back to that afternoon in the museum in Rome, standing alone in front of the large painting, truly seeing it for the first time.

In the letter Dr. Carr states: “Internalized racism has been one of the primary means by which we are constantly forced to perpetuate and collude in our own oppression and the oppression of others of our race. In the case of the “Venus Hottentot Cake”, equally devastating is that the artist Makode Aj Linde is Afro-Swedish. His own head adorned with long locks forms that of the naked Black woman in the cake, lying motionless on a table in a room surrounded by a laughing crowd. Not one Black woman, not one Black person in the room, except the artist and his cake. Makode Aj Linde is seen with a blackened face screaming with pain each time a Swedish guest cuts a slice from the cake. We are horrified as we try to make sense of this artist’s actions and we are perplexed by his explanation of the art as an awareness raising piece on the “practice of female genital mutilation” in certain African communities, or a practice that many African women’s rights defenders have come to rename female genital cutting (FGC). The moment that cake was presented; the moment that cake was eaten; the moment that cake caused joy and excitement, re-opening the marvel that white Europeans felt at exploiting African women’s bodies—specifically, the sexualized celebration, the entrapment, the cutting of the genitalia of the Sara Baartman-like black body, the ethics of the artist comes into serious question, even if not the art itself, for the sake of “art”, for the sake of non-censorship. Racism was propped up in its ugliest form, facilitated by a Black artist and perpetuated on the representation of the body of a Black female.”

This incident not only brings up  not only the history of Sarah “Saartjie” Baartman aka “Venus Hottentot” but the history of western medicine where Black women were mutilated for gynecological “research”, this history is recounted in Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington. Though we should be outraged by the Swedish Minister of Culture we  also have to interrogate how a man of African descent could create and facilitate this for his “art”. If we are going to attack rappers for calling Black women bitches and hoes we have to critique all artist and men who disrespect Black women. We also have to teach Black women the history of how our bodies were exploited so that they do not willing sign-up to be modern day Venus Hottentot’s in music videos or magazines. Sarah “Sarrtjie” Baartman was promised wealth and fame for traveling to Europe but she was not told of the exploitation that faced her, today many of our video models and musicians are promised wealth for exploiting their bodies but most often this wealth and fame are  just smoke screen and mirrors and the cycle continues.

This is an example of what  can happen when art is created devoid of spirituality, social responsibility and cultural sensitivity but it also an example of the ways in which these  scripts of racism, sexism, internalized racial oppression and disrespect of Black womanhood are deeply embedded into our culture on conscious and subconscious levels. As much as things appear to have changed they have stayed the same and if we are not conscious we can all play into the scripts that have been laid out by this racist culture.

My Poetic Response: Let Them Eat Cake While We Co-Create

For more information visit:

[News] Swedish minister of culture carves up racist cake of Sarah Baartman -World Arts Day

THE VENUS HOTTENTOT CAKE: WHEN ART IS RACIST PROPAGANDA

Related articles

• Black Woman Body Cake: White Privilege Swedish Style (Video) (blogher.com)
• ‘N–ger Cake’ Flap: Hottentot Venus 2.0 (theroot.com)
• Just Art or Extremely Offensive? ‘Painful Cake’ Shows Screaming African Woman Being Cut & Eaten At World Art Day in Sweden (clutchmagonline.com)

This Poem was inspired by the “Painful Cake” Installation: Let Them Eat Cake While We Co-Create by Onleilove 

The screams of countless unnamed slave women, Sara Baartman and the mothers of Trayvon and Emmett are comedy for a sin sick society that does not want to see its complicity and duplicity in our destruction.  

Art for art’s sake is a dangerous risk to take in a society of institutionalized Hate.

From the villages of Niger, to the backwoods of North Carolina and the brick cities of New Jersey, ebony wombs are demonized, sterilized and mutualized with no regard for our divine humanity.

Art for art’s sake is a dangerous risk to take in a society of institutionalized Hate.

They call our pain art, throwing their heads back in privileged laughter while tasting the sweetest cake that a ½ cup of Black self-hate, 2 cups of globalized White Supremacy, and 3 cups of our tears can make.

These tears stream down our faces into traumatized wombs.

Art for art’s sake is a dangerous risk to take in a society of institutionalized Hate.

Let them eat this cake while we awake from screams and demonic laughter into the power of Sojourner, Harriet, Lorde and First Lady Obama.

No longer commodified field hands, video booties or breeding vaginas we will bake a cake of liberating beauty made with the finest ingredients from “our mothers’ gardens” because:

Art for OUR sake is a beautiful risk to take in a new reality that we will co-create.

AJStream

On April 15, artist Makode Linde‘s cake art, in the shape of a naked black woman [update: I read that the cake was modeled after Sarah "Saartjie" Baartman], was meant to highlight female genital mutilation (FGM) on World Art Day in Sweden. I have been struggling to write about this for days because each time I see the video or images I am infuriated.

I understand that art can do that. Art can challenge. Art can inspire. Art can make you question your perspectives. Art can even make you sick.

That being said, FGM is a very serious issue.

FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. According to the World Health Organization, about 140 million girls and women worldwide are living with the consequences of FGM. In Africa, about 92 million girls age 10 years and above are estimated to have undergone FGM.

The image of a female cake, a red cake, being cut into is challenging to watch. Linde’s blackface persona screaming as the knife cuts into the cake creates an even more difficult, uncomfortable and controversial experience. Personally, the smiling inquisitive faces of those in attendance is puzzling but is not where I find the most frustration.

When did this performance piece get out of hand?

AJStream

The moment Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, the Swedish Minister of Culture, fed Linde a piece of cake.

There’s much dialogue around racism and the appearance of a black woman in agony surrounded by the white elite – I can see that. I can see how Linde is challenging the viewer. I get it. The cutting of the cake partnered with Linde’s cries make me uncomfortable, but isn’t that the point?

What I cannot fathom is the momentary lack of judgement by Linde and Liljeroth. The simple exchange of cake undermines the intent of the performance piece and makes a mockery of FGM and the plight of millions of young girls and women.

What do you think?

At the Berlin Conference in 1884 Chancellor Otto von Bismarck served a big cake which was divided and shared between all who were present to symbolise the carving up and distribution of Africa among Western powers. Today in Sweden they carve up cake of the black wailing female body to symbolise … female genital mutilation …white depravity… (Swedish) forced sterilization ? In real concrete terms? Nothing other than the objectification and subordination of black African women which attempts to make racism and sexism appear to be a natural and inevitable part of existence.

Art as the most developed form of the capitalist commodity…

A Swedish minister helped herself to a piece of the cake. Now there are calls for her dismissal. The art installation was supposed to highlight female circumcision in Africa but instead reveals a sickness at the heart of Europe. Female genital mutilation, like cannibalism in the 19th century, has become a motif of the darkest continent and is constantly recirculated.

Makode Aj Linde, the artist who created the installation and whose head is part of the cake cut by the minister, wrote about the “genital mutilation cake” on his Facebook page. “Before cutting me up she [Swedish Culture Minister Adelsohn Liljeroth] whispered, ‘Your life will be better after this’ in my ear,” he wrote in a caption next to the partially eaten cake.

On display, western art representing all that is best and universal about European culture. It’s refined, sophisticated, not naive or primitive like African art and it has the right to provoke so long as those doing it are white and it asserts their top dog position in the global racial hierarchy. Here the values of Europe are contrasted with the savage imaginary of darkest Africa. If Mugabe had done the same to a white body there would be howls of outrage from Europe and he would be called a cannibal thus proving the barbarity of the African man but this is the way the west defines its normality. In Europe, it’s just a bit of fun, innit? In Bahrain they cut off the genitals of young boys but the Swedes clearly know who their friends are and would never be so daring as to display the genitals of an Arab youth to symbolise the torture by the Bahraini state on World Art Day. That would be too radical, man.

There’s so much disgustingness here I barely know where to begin. I can only repeat what I see until I process it fully -  the racist representation of a black woman with distended stomach standing in for African womanhood with the head of the artist, a white man, in black face – the most grotesque chimera – groaning in agony as participants help themselves to pieces of genitalia while clearly enjoying the spectacle so much they laugh and take pictures on iphones. The Black mammy stereotype is used to depict the young African girls it is feared are being being subjected to FGM. The tradition of blackface reminds us of the marginalisation of African Americans in the US entertainment industry during the 1940s and, at the precise moment black actors disappeared from the screen, white actors like Al Jolson appeared in blackface to caricature African Americans as “darkies” and “picaninnies”. Blackface also appeared as black culture was being driven underground (Shohat, Stam 1994: 224).

In the same way that blackface directly references the  absent African American, this piece of European art reminds us that it has nothing to do with FGM.  FGM victims are disappeared, transformed into caricatural cake; waiting to be cut and eaten. Instead of hearing their stories we are entertained by the male artist’s mock groans of pain. It is a ruse which allows for the enjoyment of a particular racist sexist imagery that it was forbidden to enjoy openly and never at the level of the nation, internationally, in my life time – Swedish Mohammed cartoons aside – by its white audience until now. This racist sexist imagery is one of the founding stones of European culture c. 1492 and god forbid! One would think the artist had plagiarised Herges’ Tin Tin.  On World Art Day? Really?

It’s revealing too how this theme of cannibalism with its roots in 19th century colonialist racism is repeated but this time it is white people eating not just black people, but their genitals, thus eroticising the act of eating another’s flesh. Projections of African cannibalism were used by Empire to rationalise the costs of the European civilising mission, however the motif of cannibalism has been updated and transposed by female genital mutilationfor our new postmodern times. Even though it appears (to those in the sway of the dominant culture and ideology) that the objective political and economic conditions that rendered these racist/sexist images have disappeared they remain ever ready to be called upon anew because they have always been instrumental in maintaining interlocking systems of race, class and gender oppressions (Hill Collins 1991: 68).

Nothing needs to stand in for racism today. It’s all on display. Blatant. So here lies the “joke”: it is the white woman who is eating the black woman’s body. We have a repetition of the white male racist motif of the African cannibal only now it is reversed so the white woman eats the black woman. At no other time in history have white women constituted such a formative block with all the wealth that this entails as they do today, and so it should not surprise us that the language of Right to Protect and humanitarian intervention is geared towards them and that they would form the bedrock of support for imperial military interventions (q.v Ramon Grosfoguel and recall Libya/African mercenary rapists). Anyone with even a smidgen of knowledge about the American black civil rights movement will know that women were placed at the heart of the struggle. Those white Swedish women now eating cake are beneficiaries of that struggle. Our unconscious white sisters have not only sold us out but they are preparing to eat us to ensure they maintain this privilege. We need to wake them up to this and to the truth that colonialism buried, that the wealth of Europe lies in its commodification of black bodies and, in particular, the reproductive organs of the the black woman which is here naively exposed and reveled in.

Lars Von Triers once produced a film called The Idiots which gave permission for audience to laugh at the mentally disabled. One wonders whether this art installation performs a similar function but as in The Idiots, we know the idiots/savages are not those caricatured by the artist but those who laugh at the spectacle.

Performance of swedish artist Makode Linde at World Art Day on 15th April 2012 at Moderna Museet Stockholm

Slow hand clap.

Oh… as I’m not watching the television, hence the delayed response – I’m guessing that Ayaan Hirshi is about to make an appearance at any point now decrying the hullaballo.

Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth in Stockholm cutting the cake.

Sweden’s Minister of Culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, has been accused of racism after participating in World Art Day. The scandal involves the Minister cutting a cake which portrays a nude black woman. Supporters of the event say the cake was meant to shed light on the issue of female genital mutilation.

The National Afro-Swedish Organization, a Swedish group promoting the rights of people of African origin, called the stunt a “tasteless, racist spectacle” and demanded the Minister step down. The Minister said she has no plans of resigning over the incident.

The Minister issued the following statement:

“I am the first to agree that Makode Linde’s piece is highly provocative since it deliberately reflects a rasist 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.

As Minister for Culture it is my responsibility to safeguard the conditions for and independence of art and culture. At the same time, it is also my job to uphold the democratic values that counter racism, intolerance and xenophobia.

I chose to open World Art Day to turn the spotlight on art and freedom of expression. The Swedish Artists’ National Organization chose in turn to highlight Makode Linde to bring attention to his anti-racist artistry. Through the ceremony, however, I became personally involved in Makode Linde’s highly provocative form of expression.”

So, what’s the deal here? The cake that we are talking about is a afrowoman with the real head of the creator of the same. Makode Linde who is the creator of this cake as well as other pieces of art that are related to the series Afromantics, is trying to create reactions to what one see, to trigger a sense of doubt on how one as a person view things that are different and not like oneself. In his mind, this cake is not racist and neither is the minister that had the honour of cutting the first piece of the cake.

If the cake would’ve been a white woman, cut by a coloured person, would we have the same discussion? Would there be an issue? A white person being cut up by a muslim maybe, or no wait wouldn’t that be terrorism? I am starting to wonder if maybe we are keeping racism alive in the same way as we are keeping terrorism alive, and feminism, maybe it is still here because we can not let it go? Doesn’t it in one way serves a purpose, with feminism we can have quotation, we can say pay me more because I am a woman and life isn’t fair, give me that job because you need more women in the workplace (even if the man next to her might be more qualified). With terrorism come control, we can search all your things, we can hold you in a cell for as long as we want because we want to, we can attack your country because we say you are a terrorist.

Since I’m white (very much so, I barely get a tan at all) I have never really been discriminated because of my skin (well, there was that one time in the Bangkok airport where me and my sister was singled out because we were young, blond, Scandinavian women – stupid enough to smuggle drugs for charming good-looking men) so it is hard to say; I still belive that in one way it is easy to make a bigger deal out of cake than necessary. All attention is good attention, right? Publishing articles in papers regarding a minister eating cake and demanding the departure of that same minister does create a stir and attention that will benefit the people behind the statements, no matter if the minister will leave her job or not.

As I see it, in my Sweden today, we are not that much racist regarding the colour of ones skin, I see it more as a racism towards what we belive people stand for and what we think they do. We think that all muslims are terrorists, that refugees are lazy people who want to sit on their ass and receive money form the government while their teenage sons are all criminals. And not to forget, we white people all think we are so much better than everyone else.

So what is it that I’m trying to say? I think that maybe if we start looking more at what we have in common rather than constantly pointing out the differences, and maybe if we start minimizing the gaps rather than making them wider, then maybe, just maybe the generations that are on their way into independent thinking look more to the actions of the individuals, excluding the colour of their skin, what country they originated from and what their religious beliefs are. That is just me though!

In case it’s not clear what going on there, here’s the sitch. Swedish artist Makode Linde wanted to make a statement about female circumcision. So he made a body out of red velvet cake, situated himself as the head and screamed when people cut into it.

Lots of people were upset at the caricaturish cake lady and called the piece racist.

But honestly, I was too bothered by the concept of eating a screaming cake to be offended. Also a little bummed that I have to think about bloody, tattered labia whenever I cut into some Heaven-sent red velvet.

(And now you will, too!)

Mmmmm, oppression.
(source)

And it did give me another reason to believe that I’m definitely not an RBP  because I couldn’t possibly be descended from people who would go through this. Not because having your twat cut off or sewn up would make it difficult to procreate and thus decrease the likelihood that The Oreo Experience would ever spring forth from your horribly abused loins. Rather because I am way too much of a pussy to be the owner of genes that could endure the rights of passage that brown people the world over seem to be able to handle.

I’ve talked about my shameful love of reality TV on the blog before. Currently, I’ve moved on from Housewives and Models though and am dealing with darker shows… Intervention, Taboo, Chopped.

For those who haven’t seen Taboo, here’s the sitch. It’s a show that looks at other societies doing things that we in the West would typically find objectionable. Things like building your house on top of a grave, drinking piss for fun and hurting yourself in the name of becoming a man or woman. Just look at some of this stuff!!

Here’s a kid willfully sticking his hands into gloves filled with thousands of poisonous, angry ants. He’ll have to do this 18 more times to win at being a man.

Here’s a kid spending a coupla hours get cut all over with razors.

Here’s a dude who’s not Jesus willingly letting himself get crucified.

Fuck!
(source)

And here’s a lady breastfeeding a pig.

Not as painful, but still....no thank you.

I’m such a wimp about pain that I passed out when my friend broke their toe. If anyone ever tried to do any of the above things to me, I would die instantly. Seriously, if I were a tribal dude and someone was like “okay, well, time to cut all your skin off so you can prove you’re a man.” I’d be like “Wait, what? Ohhhh, no, I’m not a boy, this is just a long clit.” Then they’d be like “okay, let’s cut it off then, so you can stay the pure woman you are and let this pig suckle from your bosom.” And then I’d just kill myself.

I know the Romans and Gaels and Saxons did effed up shiz to human bodies, too…but at least they had the good sense not to do it to themselves! Not saying my first choice for a Tuesday night would be to watch a torture party in the Coliseum, but at least I’d be able to keep my privates.

A friend did mention to me recently that the West’s lack of truly challenging rights of passage might be contributing to certain social ills (basically the super indulgent “why me ennui” that so many folks seem to be afflicted with when the only thing wrong with their lives is that they don’t have their dream job at 23). What do you think? Do we need to bring back more intense ways of letting people belong to the tribe? Let us know in the comments!

Oh, and if your answer to the above question is “yes,” do me a favor and give me a running start, m’kay?

*Shameless Oreo Plug. 1) SmartyPig is a totally cool $-savings tool! I highly recommend it. b) So I have the opportunity to meet with an actor who I love love love in the UK this summer. Trying to make it a successful working holiday and take some other Brit talent out for a pint with the hope of writing for them one day. Should anyone feel inclined to help an Oreo purchase one of those pints, it would be totes appreciated. You can learn more about my trip, and SmartyPig at this link.

This cake, a caricatured African woman featuring the blackface head of artist Makode Aj Linde, was part of an art installation highlighting the problem of Female Genital Mutilation in parts of Africa. The culture minister “celebrated” the installation by cutting the cake near the clitoris area, and then feeding that piece to the mouth. The entirely white audience laughed and took photographs of the incident.

Not a single member of that audience thought this was extremely racist, if not downright creepy? Sorry if I’m mistaken, but I fail to see the fun in racist stereotypes, nor in the practice of real and/or symbolic FGM.

The culture minister continues to assert the photos do not show the full context of the incident, and that there is nothing racist in what took place. To most of her critics though, including myself, the situation looks pretty cut and dry. And it’s not pretty.

Image via Asa Andersson/BUS

What could possibly be so funny and entertaining about cutting off a woman’s clitoris? Even if said clitoris was simply a culinary creation? And then feeding that same “clitoris” back to its owner’s mouth?

Liljeroth said the art was meant to be provocative- good art often is. But the art in question was not provocative; it was merely degrading, humiliating, racist and offensive. Female Genital Mutilation should in no way be a laughing matter, and the manner in which it was depicted here should outrage everybody with a sense of decency.

Liljeroth suffered a severe lack of judgment and self-awareness when she mocked the issue of FGM in such an unsavory manner. By participating in this incident she clearly endorsed the use of racist humor in depicting Africans and the problems facing Africa today. That photo could have easily been taken back in 1930, for the attitudes and awareness expressed therein don’t seem to have changed much since then.

People have also hailed criticism on Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art for even allowing such an installation. They say the decision to show such “artwork” is just more evidence of a country-wide and institutionalized acceptance of racism in Sweden.

Clearly the artwork should have been condemned and never allowed on display. But such overtly racist incidents like this are not just commonplace in Sweden; they are common throughout all Western countries.

How many “blackface” scandals have surfaced in North American universities in the past few years? At least four or more from my count. There was the incident from Halloween 2009 when several Northwestern University students showed up to a party dressed as African American caricatures in blackface. One of the students wore a T-shirt that said “Jamaica” on it. In the Fall of 2011 students at the University of Montreal’s business school showed up in blackface at a back-to-school event and shouted chants in fake Jamaican accents. This past February comedian Dave Ackerman wore blackface while interviewing Brigham Young University students about Black History Month.

Then there are those horrible videos from European football games that were passed around several years ago: entire stadiums of white European spectators shouting racist epithets at black players on the field.

I could name plenty more incidents where mainstream figures, or mainstream institutions, said or did overtly racist things. Some apologized after a public backlash and condemnation, others didn’t. You start trying to keep track of these incidents and you lose count pretty quickly.

It’s terrible that incidents like this continue to occur. But it’s a systemic problem, fueled by ignorance, bigotry, and fear. People need to be better educated about the implications of certain portrayals, and they need to be properly reprimanded when they cross the line. I would say all complicit parties crossed the line in this case- the museum, the minister, the artist, and the audience. Hopefully some lessons will be learned here, but honestly I’m not counting on it.

It’s Sunday, April 15th, and at Moderna Museet the swedish Artists Organisation is organising a celebration of World Art Day, as well as celebrating its own 75th birthday. Invited to speak is Lena Adelsohn-Liljeroth, the culture minister, who – it’s worth noting – is reviled by large parts of the art world for her culture-sceptic stance and for previously condemning provocative art in what many see as a kind of censorship. Here’s her chance at patching things up.

A number of artists have been asked to create birthday cakes for the celebration. At some point, Lena Adelsohn-Liljeroth gets asked if she would go ahead and cut the first piece of cake, standard politician fare she thinks, and she agrees. Then she’s told that the cake will be about the limits of provocative art, which is a subject she now carefully treads around, and about female genital mutilation.

The cake is wheeled out and uncovered. The crowd stares, tittering nervously. The culture minister is placed at the crotch end, and starts cutting into the cake – when suddenly the head starts screaming in pain. It’s the artist, Makode Linde, whose own painted head is placed as the head of the cake. The crowd’s tittering erupts in nervous laughter; the uncomfortable humour of the situation, the classic Swedish fear of conflict, triggered by the surprise sound and movement. Lena Adelsohn-Liljeroth tries to play along as best she can in what she sees as a “bizarre” situation, reciprocating the laughter.

And on the other side of the cake, placed in the narrow space in front of a glass wall, stands one of the minister’s fiercest critics, visual artist and provocateur Marianne Lindberg De Geer, camera at the ready. And she snaps pictures of the whole series of events, as the minister is egged into doing more outrageous things, performing for the crowd.

It’s of course no coincidence. The whole thing was carefully planned, a “mousetrap” as one Swedish artist puts it. And based on how much traction the picture of the event has garnered, it was a very efficient mousetrap indeed.

Who’s Makode Linde, who staged the whole event? He is a visual artist, and as such has continuously asked uncomfortable questions about race, racial stereotyping and his own position as a black man in a condescending elite art world. The golliwog figure is a consistent image in his artwork, being placed on everyday objects, on paintings grinning nervously at the king, gawking in horror from children’s faces, at times undergoing almost formalist destruction. But just as importantly: he’s a club promoter and a DJ, one of Sweden’s most successful, who knows exactly how to manipulate crowds and their emotions.

And I’m left wondering – whatever the artist himself says – if the intended artwork here is not the cake, nor the performance, but the picture. Because what Makode Linde and Marianne Lindberg De Geer have produced is a picture which is incredibly powerfully laden with symbolism of colonial exploitation.

The all-white crowd, laughing bayingly and taking pictures while the African Other screams in anguish.

The cemented association between racist stereotyping and the haute bourgeoisie, as Johan Wirfält writes.

The visual connection not just to blackface but to parodied, racist depictions of African art, the kind that is looted by colonialists and that provide ongoing shame for western Ethnographical museums. At, of course, an event in a museum.

The cutting of the genitals, the literal removal of the sexual subjectivity of the screaming woman.

The feeding, not as an act of infinite compassion, but as an objectifying joke, the “recipient” made entirely passive and unintelligible.

And the fact that the source of the food is the symbolic African herself, the resources stolen from her belly.

It’s a brilliant staging of structural racism and post-colonial existence.

* Johan Palme blogs at Birdseeding.

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