Calls for minister to quit over 'racist' cake

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8453386/calls-for-minister-to-quit-over-racist-cake

Sweden's culture minister has faced calls to resign after she was filmed cutting into a cake resembling an African woman as part of an art piece on female genital mutilation.

Minister Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth cut the cake to mark the 75th anniversary of the Swedish Artists Federation at Stockholm's modern art museum, Al Jazeera reported.

In the bizarre piece of performance art, the body of the African woman consisted of cake while Afro-Swedish artist Makode Aj Linde's head sat at the top.

As the minister cut into the "crotch" of the cake, Mr Linde screamed out in mock pain.

Female genital mutilation is still a big problem in some parts of Africa, something Mr Linde wanted to highlight.

The performance was a "tasteless, racist spectacle", the African Swedish National Association said.

Ms Andlesohn Liljeroth said she didn't have a chance to inspect the cake before the anniversary.

"If some people have been offended, I apologise," she said.

"Then it's up to the artist to explain what he meant with his work."

Mr Linde told Al Jazeera he thinks his work has been misunderstood and he has used art to criticise stereotypes of Africans.

Swedish art critic Dan Jonsson said Ms Adelsohn Liljeroth would have been damned if she did and damned if she didn't.

"Either she'd been accused of being judgemental about artistic freedom, or to express racism," Mr Jonsson wrote in Dagens Nyheter.

"If this is the case, it was a skillfully set trap."