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Swedish flag attack on 'racist cake' artist

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Swedish flag attack on 'racist cake' artist

Swedish artist Makode Linde, who gained notoriety for a "racist cake" exhibit and who is known for poking fun at white stereotypes of black people, was hit over the head with a Swedish flag by an enraged gallery visitor on Thursday.

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Linde was in attendance as his exhibition at the Lokstallet gallery in Strömstad in western Sweden on Thursday evening with a group of visitors when a drunk man in his mid-thirties entered the art hall brandishing a small Swedish flag.

"It was the kind of flagpole people have on the stern of a boat, for example, and it had a Swedish flag on it," Strömstad municipality's culture director Jan Palmblad told the regional Göteborgs-Posten (GP) newspaper.

Palmblad said that while the drunk man was already angry upon entering the gallery, he did not appear to recognize Linde. The Swedish artist shot to global fame last year when Sweden's Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth tucked into a cake in the shape of a woman's body, covered in black marzipan and meant to symbolize stereotypical colonial depictions of African women.

The affair, dubbed "Cake-gate" by some, saw several observers question the minister's actions, with the Afro-Swedes Association demanding that she resign.

The exhibition on show in Strömstad is a continuation of Linde's "Afromantics" body of work.

"It's possible that the exhibition was the reason (for the attack). Of course it can be provocative," Palmblad told GP.

"Or maybe he just doesn't like art."

The police are yet to home in on a suspect, but Linde, while shaken up, did not have to seek medical attention for the Swedish-flag assault, according to Palmblad.

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