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:
Dec '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
I don't get it. This moron "artist" says he's bringing awareness to the awful practice of clitorectomies, and to do that he bakes a cake that looks like a woman and encourages people to perform said act on the "woman". And then for good measure he even cries out in faux pain whenever some idiot guest, laughing, cuts the cake/woman. Even if you believe this is art, and you don't care that it's in extremely bad taste, it makes no logical sense.
Nov '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
Isn't the irony more delicious than the cake?
What if that's what the artist intended?
There is no question that the "art" is poor taste. But that could have been deliberate, not gratuitous.
I'm just saying it's possible.
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Nov '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
I agree.
In fact, I think it's growing on me.
Consider: the artwork is indisputably revolting. However, in some parts of the world, there is little revulsion at FGM. For example, 90% of women in Egypt are estimated to undergo it. Maybe there is insufficient revulsion among Western feminists too.
So: feeling revolted by this artwork? Well, what about the real thing? Couldn't that be the moral message?
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Joseph Stanko: Upon further reflection... I don't think I'm nearly as offended or disturbed by this as most of you seem to be. I agree that it's crass, inappropriate, and not in any meaningful sense of the word "art."
But I do think, in its rather clumsy way, it was intended as a critique of the abhorrent practice of clitoridectomy. Whereas so much of what passes for avant-garde art these days (Maplethorpe, Serrano, Chris Ofili, Tracey Emin, etc.) is just purely nihilistic, provocative for the sake of being provocative, this "artist" was at leasttryingto make a point and perhaps make the world a better place.
So overall a D- for effort, even though the execution was poor. · 10 hours ago
Nov '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
It's also just a hyper-macabre gag, involving multiple taboo violations, and as such, not one that lends itself to conservative sensibilities. Left-liberals, who love transgressive, would tend to "appreciate" it more.
Nov '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
"That's not funny!" "It's a dark comedy, man! You just didn't get it. ...Too dark."
Aug '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
By reducing a horrible act to poorly-executed art, the artist has managed to accomplish one thing - to further the state of dehumanization, which, incidentally is what all left wing actions do. FGM becomes less bad when people gleefully participate in faux representations of it.
What is seen cannot be unseen and seeing this and the joyful actions it engendered in the audience has stained my soul.
This 'art' is evil.
Edited on April 19, 2012 at 3:21pmOct '10
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
I feel sick.
Feb '11
Re: Swedish Minister of Culture Performs Cake Clitoridectomy
Well, Mark Steyn often writes about the moral and cultural collapse of Europe -- this makes his case quite well.