'I am not a racist', says Norway's bad-boy artist
The artist whose provocative chair outraged race and women's rights campaigners last week has accused his critics of reacting "out of all proportion" to the work.
"I am not a racist," Bjarne Melgaard told Norway's NRK broadcaster in his home city of New York. "People can interpret things however they themselves desire. It's not something I can decide on."
He expressed bemusement that there had been no reaction when the chair, which is fashioned from a mannequin of a black woman bound up with bondage equipment, was featured in exhibitions in Rome, Paris and New York one and a half years ago.
"I think the reaction is coming a little too late," Melgaard said. "It should have come one and half years ago when the work was exhibited."
http://www.thelocal.no/20140127/i-am-not-a-racist-says-norways-bad-boy-artist
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Where she lounged om the chair like it was nothin'.
Melgaard's piece is inspired by a 1969 piece by Allen Jones, titled simply "Chair." The difference is the race of the women used as furniture - "Chair" is white, and "Black Woman Chair" is, obviously, black.
Here is a piece from the Guardian about the subject... and here's a post from the blog Abagond, where i first learned of all this (warning; do not take Abagond internally if you are a white person prone to proclaiming themselves to be "color-blind" or "beyond race."
