Let them eat “Nigger Cake”
As a feminist scholar (warning this might not be that scholarly but I’m going to try) and as an artist, I felt compelled to write something about this performance art piece from Sweden called “nigger cake.” I had to swirl this in my mind, and I had to explore exactly why the imagery bothered me. Hadn’t the artist, Makode Linde, been successful in his execution in showing how thoughtless people could be? Did he not turn a lens on the callousness and off putting reactions not only to the cake but the screams that accompanied the cutting? So why did I feel some kind of way about this? Why did knowing that Swedish women have issues, not feel validating to me?
This is not the first time a performance artist has attempted to shift focus from art to audience; Coco Fusco and Adrian Piper come to mind. Both artists make a spectacle of the audience more than the actual installation - and they were not alone in creating race focused installations that inevitably forced the audience to look at themselves, which is a more thoughtful execution of the genre.
In this cake piece that supposively translates into clitordectomy cake, has had a two tiered response level. The first being the actual Minister of Culture and other participants who viewed and consumed the cake on site, and the second is the social media audience that viewed it after the fact. Both audiences are forced to face their feelings on this. I have noticed that many were angry at the Minister of Culture, and others angry at the artist. I too had to face some feelings on my own about this.
As stated before, when I saw the imagery it definitely spurred a visceral reaction out of me. I know I probably wouldn’t have gone near the cake. If it were put to me to participate in the exercise, I’m not sure if I could have done it without feeling shame or extreme sadness. To put it plainly I felt immediately sickened by the imagery, and I have yet to listen to the audio provided. However, it might have been the intent of the artist, to create this reaction of the second tier audience.
What troubles me amongst other things, is that the cake model of the woman is put on display and probably invited to be cut into by caucasian women; and at one point fed to the artist, who is of African decent. Aside from the screaming, the cake representation is passive to everyone else’s action. ”She” has no justice or redemption - the cake doesn’t even make them sick, cause awareness or evoke sadness. What’s worse, is the “she” becomes humorous entertainment. One could say, well you’re aware of racism in Sweden. What I can say is that it’s not shocking. One could also say, its just cake.
This brings me back to the artist - the creator of a “nigger cake.” One of the hardest things when artists and scholars attempt to illuminate a issue or provoke an argument is to not inadvertently re-inscribe that which one maybe trying to elucidate or change as a part of a political statement. In other words, trying to calling attention to something that is viewed as inhumane by creating an inhumane subject that is visually stereotypical could be re-inscribing the space that people might feel between populations not indigenous to their own culture - which depending on the intent of the piece renders it ineffective. However if provocation is the point, the he accomplished his goal; by putting a representation of a black woman on a table and slicing her to pieces while everyone consumes her being in the midst of her screams.
