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Giant blue penis painted on Stockholm apartment building

A Swedish artist has painted a five-story-high blue erect penis, complete with bulging veins, on an apartment building in central Stockholm.

Published: 11 April 2018 14:44 CEST
Updated: 11 April 2018 16:06 CEST
Giant blue penis painted on Stockholm apartment building
What will the neighbours think? The penis bathed in the sun in Stockholm on Wednesday. Photo: Hugo Röjgård/Graffitifrämjandet
Carolina Falkholt, who created the mural, said she hoped that even those who are repulsed or angered by her art would be forced to think, in comments made to the Aftonbladet tabloid.
 
“They should consider what it is they are so upset about and then talk about it,” she said as the painting was unveiled at Kronobergsvägen on Kungsholmen. “Sex is so important, but it’s always been too dirty to discuss.” 
 
The penis was painted on a legal graffiti wall established in Stockholm by the art organization Kollektivet Livet, meaning there was no need to consult with residents before painting it. 

 
“They can choose the motif themselves, so I don’t think they’ve talked to the neighbours or anyone before doing this,” Hugo Röjgård, from Swedish graffiti campaign group Graffitifrämjandet, told The Local.
 
He said that he didn’t think the decision would hurt his campaign to encourage more apartment building owners to free up walls for graffiti.
 
“I don’t think so really, because first of all Carolina Falkholt is a widely known artist in Sweden. And secondly, the thing with these kinds of wall is that you’re supposed to paint stuff that doesn’t have any other place to be,” Röjgård said.
 
He added: “I’m not saying these walls are for making big penises on, but it should be alright to do that.” 
 

Kollektivet Livet normally allows paintings to remain on the wall for about six months before commissioning a new artist. 
 

Falkholt caused uproar in New York in December when she painted a similar giant erection — this time in pink, orange and red — on a wall in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. 
 
That painting was erased after only a few days, rather than the three weeks intended, following heavy media coverage and vociferous complaints from residents.  
 
“I usually paint giant vaginas, pussies and cunts,” Falkholt told The Guardian newspaper in December. “And since I had just finished one on the side of a five-storey building, I felt like a dick was needed. The wall space on Broome was a perfect fit for it. To paraphrase [the artist] Judith Bernstein, if a dick can go into a woman, it can go up on a wall.”
 
Falkholt told Aftonbladet that she expected Stockholm residents to be more welcoming: “I think that perhaps it will be allowed to remain here, that people get the message and let it take its place in the debate around the body, sexuality, and freedom.” 
 
“I think that there there’s greater intellectual space to discuss the subject, in a nuanced way.” 
 

ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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