MARIJA_2018B

If you were living in Africa, you would look for things from Europe.
Marja: But then I ind things I would hate to see, for example, things that remind of
the slave trade. I wouldn’t use that so easily in my work...
Monika: But you can... precisely to make this visible. I don’t work for example with
Ceasar, the Roman emperor… hahaha
Marja:.. haha ... but you do work with European painting history sometimes, or Jan
van Riebeeck. You give them the Mickey Mouse ears too...
Monika: Yes, but that is another series of work, it refers to western cultural history.
I grew up here and live in a western society. The question is then: where are WE.. ?
Black people don’t often go to museums, because they don’t feel connected. But I
want to know more about that history, want to know what happened. In a way we
all want to be one big family on earth, but that’s not possible. By giving all people the
Ears I take away all their power, richness , nobility etc.. and by giving everybody those
ears it is like taking away peoples’ clothes.
I also make them funny and who knows, people then will come to the museum…
In the end I would love to show the sculptures or other work I made in Africa, and see
how they respond to this. What do they really think from their perspective?
Marja: Did you get any responses from other black artists?
Monika: No, not really. On
Instagram I have some Afro-
American friends. They did like
it but it was not a discussion.
But in the Whitney museum you
have more of these discussions,
they are the museum in the
U.S. that show ‘Black art’, they
are far ahead of us in this way.
Also in South Africa there are
inally openings of another kind
of art, not only the Western
mainstream art is leading.
Things have to change here too.
We are here in the Netherlands
not that far. We have so many
people from diferent countries,
there must be artists among
them, talented artists. But I
don’t see them, not in museums,
not at openings, they don’t get
grants.
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Collage Monika Dahlberg