Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Controversial Art

How far can you go when you create art? Is there a limit as to what you can do?

Artist Makode Linde's own words about his art;
"Afromantics" is a tool for reshaping the Western concepts of paradise and education with exotistisc romanticized images of the violent historical facts behind slavery, apartheid and racism." (Source)"I am using an old caricature of blacks - the "Blackface" that whites used once to mock blacks. Then, I worked on strengthening the caricatures to illustrate the prejudices that exist." (Source)
The reason why this artist is all over the Swedish news is because of a caricature cake and artwork that he made for the World Art Day. The cake shows the torso of a black female and the artist used his own, painted, head as the head of the torso. When the cake was cut he screamed. The Minister of Culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, cut the cake and was shocked when it screamed. She laughed, a common reaction to surprise, and fed Makode with the cake.

Now people are demanding that the Minister of Culture leaves her post because she's racist. The museum where it happened have had a bomb threat and the artist Makode Linde is accused of being racist by other Afro Swedes.

Are the people in the interactive art installation racist? I don't know, I don't know the people in it well enough. However, I do know that the images of the art installation is not enough to cast judgement. There is more than meets the eye. 

No comments:

Post a Comment