I'm speechless. please keep this thread in hangout as long as possible as I really really want to avoid D&D. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...-featured-actress-blackface-article-1.1063075 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rCK6zvWEN_Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I find it mildly depressing that the swedish minister caught up in this fiasco is supposedly renowned in Sweden for being anti-racist. After watching the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and seeing sweden's version of anti-racism, i have decided I'm probably not gonna wanna move there for a while.
It's probably acceptable as art, but I don't see any problem with the Afro-Swedish Association complaining about it, either. Couple o' non-profits tryin' to make that paper.
I just don't see the artsy side of eating the cake genitals of a blackface...bah I can't even finish the sentence
Understanding the context of it I think is important. I think it is a very provocative way to bring up the issue of female circumcision in African countries but you need to understand that context. Knowing what the piece is about it seems to be making a statement about the damage of the practice while also mocking backwards perceptions of Africans.
It's probably just conjecture, but I hear that in other parts of the world, other bizarre things are happening with people of other cultures. Some, I'm told, are potentially even more important.
The first description makes it seem like it might be racist, but after putting it in context (art project used to bring attention to the horrors of female circumcision), I have no problem with it so I refuse to vote. It's clearly not meant to demean Africans, it's just meant to bring attention to what many African women go through in a shocking manner.
I love how the minute "art" is attached to something, it magically wipes away a bad idea. Future art projects for me: - Take a crap and put it underneath a poster called Africa to mock Americans who call Africa a dump - Take a crap on a hoodie to mock Americans who claim that the Zimmerman arrest is a piece of crap irony and art combined.
Critics and curators may find them unoriginal, technically simple or emotionally loaded; but I don't know if anything in either of those descriptions disqualify them as art. I wonder in what context either of those, or the original piece discussed, is a bad idea: to people trying to provoke thought through symbolic, unconventional media, or those trying to avoid angering or offending large sectors of the population.
Part of art though is to challenge and explore social mores even offensive once. For example Spike Lee made a movie about a modern Minstrel Show where all of the characters wore black face. Just because they are using black face here doesn't mean it is a celebration of it but there is a social critique here. My guess is that black face, also using a man in black face, is meant to show how little Europeans really understand Africans and instead are looking at them with the same stereotypes that have been true for centuries.
