Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 157

Caricature or pornography of
violence?
Mikael Löfgren
Mikael Löfgren is a writer and human rights activist, cultural critic and lecturer. He has previously
been editor at the cultural magazine Ord & Bild and at Swedish Television. Mikael has also worked
as university lecturer in Cultural Studies and as dramaturge at Unga Klara theatre, Stockholm. He
is currently teaching at Kulturverkstan, a higher vocational training programme for international
cultural managers. He is also active as a freelance critic and cultural journalist in the daily Dagens
Nyheter. Mikael has published books on various topics: postmodernism, football, Ship to Gaza, the
labour market, the global justice movement, digitisation and copyright. His most recent books are
No exceptions. The creation of value in small and mid-sized galleries of contemporary art
(2015), Perspectives on Cultural Leadership and Narratives by Cultural Change Makers (the
last two books are co-edited together with Karin Dalborg 2016). He has five children and lives on
an island outside Gothenburg.
Swedish cultural politics became internationally renowned, or rather
notorious, on April ��, ����. Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, the then Minister of
Culture, had been invited by the Swedish National Association of Artists
to celebrate World Art Day at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The artist
Makode Linde invited Adelsohn Liljeroth to have a piece of cake, the artist’s
own creation that resembled a black woman’s torso. The artist, in blackface
makeup, as the depicted African woman’s head, screamed and moaned as
the Minister lunged her knife through the crotch area of the cake. In front of
a laughing all-white audience, Adelsohn Liljeroth retorted to the artist that
“your life will be better than this” (Aftonbladet ����).
The reaction was immediate. Some claimed that the Minister had been
lured into a trap in which anyone could have made the same mistake. But for
Kenyan artist and activist Shailja Patel, it was obvious that the minister was
guilty of “simulated clitoridectomy”. In an article in the pan-African online
paper Pambazuka News, Patel argued that:
“What makes this cake episode so deeply offensive is the
appropriation, both Linde and his audience, of African women’s
bodies and experiences, while completely excluding real African
women from the discourse. It is a pornography of violence.”
(Pambazuka News ����)
156
doi: ��.�����/aia.�.�.��