Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
Sweden's minister of culture Lena Adelsohn Lilijeroth has been facing calls for her resignation after her attendance at a World Art Day celebration where she "was invited to open the festivities by performing a clitoridectomy on the cake, which she did by slicing off the part of the cake depicting female genitalia. She then proceeded to feed that part of the cake to a performance artist, done up in blackface, his head protruding through the table."
When I came across this story yesterday, I was speechless. I took a day to process it, hoping that I'd be able to make some sense of it in a day's time. That hasn't happened. I still don't understand why anyone thought this was a good idea.
Meanwhile, the artist behind the cake defends his work as being "misunderstood." And what does the minister of culture have to say for herself? She's argued that the anger over the "misinterpreted" incident is misplaced and should be directed at the artist, not her.
Those Europeans: always on the cutting edge of culture.
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
I never thought I'd embrace political correctness, but that is beyond the line.
Sep '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
Just goes to show that this whole performance art c**p is as vacuous as it is removed from humanity.
Nov '11
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
You sure this wasn't the GSA?
Apr '12
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
What a ridiculous interpretation of an evil practice.
Jun '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
Has anyone bothered to ask why Sweden needs a minister of culture in the first place?
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
As I heard on the BBC today: the artist behind the cake - as well as in it, and you can't say that happens often - is black. So the real question is why the legitimate artistic expression of a minority is under fire from the white establishment. Right?
Jul '11
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
Why not dress in sheets and lynch the cake next . Good God!
May '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
So . . . this story is for real? Really?
May '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
Once I baked a skyscraper cake for an ironic Ayn Rand / Fountainhead party I was throwing, and later felt kind of embarrassed by the whole incident. So, I guess I can really relate to how this woman feels right now.
Edited on April 18, 2012 at 10:13pmRe: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
The world has officially passed me by. I can't understand any of it anymore.
Feb '11
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
How can one understand what is senseless? I am not upset with you Diane, but I am still disgusted and nauseated that I read this story and saw that image.
Mar '11
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
Because it is Europe? It's unfortunate to be forced to generalize but that continent and rationality appear to have parted company some time ago:
Just one more day in the merry-go-round of insanity across the pond:
Is this shock real? There are actually individuals here who are surprised by this story Ms. Ellis discovered?
Mar '11
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
Are they actually planning on eating that cake!?
Edited on April 18, 2012 at 10:18pmNov '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
Whatever level of irony this piece of art what intended to function at, it operates at a yet deeper level.
Aug '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
When "art" like this takes over, the world won't be worth understanding any more.
Feb '12
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
In the spirit of really awful political cakes, I give you Lenin-cake!
http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2009/7/21/im-guessing-they-didnt-have-a-matching-card.html
Third one down.
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
There are many photographs of that World Art Day party in Sweden in the links I include in the post. I'm appalled that so many children were present for that disgusting scene. And I'm also disturbed by how the pictures make it look like everyone thought the cake was so hilarious. They're all grinning with glee and snapping photographs. It's sick.
Sep '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
And of course by the BBC's standards, if the "artist" were white, that would make everything TOTALLY DIFFERENT.
Dec '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
What is this? I don't even....!?
Feb '11
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
Diane Ellis, Ed.
There are many photographs of that World Art Day party in Sweden in the links I include in the post. I'm appalled that so many children were present for that disgusting scene. And I'm also disturbed by how the pictures make it look like everyone thought the cake was so hilarious. They're all grinning with glee and snapping photographs. It's sick. · 2 minutes ago
Thanks, Diane, for telling me that -- I will make sure not to click on the link!
I recently read Paul Johnson's Art: A New History and he relates how, as a young person, he thought he might become an artist like his father, but his father cautioned him that the movement toward ugly and political art and art that makes a statement rather than art that is beautiful and uplifting could crush his soul. So he became a writer instead. Deo gratias.