A large mural at the Swedish Transport Administration's construction site in Gothenburg has sparked debate. The motif shows female genitalia and outstretched legs in fishnet stockings. The mural is accompanied by the text “God giving a f***”.
The Swedish Transport Administration commissioned feminist artist Carolina Falkholt and paid her SEK 150,000 ($17,000) for the painting. According to project coordinator Hans Ivanoff, the money is partly taken from the project budget, and partly from an advertising agreement with an outdoor advertising company, the news outlet Världen idag reported.
On its website, the Swedish Transport Administration described the mural in the following way:
“A vagina as a portal, an opening and opportunity, goes far back in art history. Fertility figures in clay have been found in connection with archaeological sites from the dawn of humanity and onwards. In Carolina Falkholt's painting, the body is reduced to only two long legs and a vagina, like a horizon drawn in a single line: the sky above and the earth below”.
The artist herself, Carolina Falkholt, said in an interview with the newspaper Göteborgs-Posten that she has seen that people turn their eyes away while walking past her work, which she interprets as a good sign, because art “should touch and arouse emotions”.
However, one of the newspaper's own lead writers, Karin Pihl, objected to Falkholt's train of thought.
“When it comes to art, we all must take part in in the public space, so the thoughts and feelings of the locals should matter,” she wrote, among other things.
Former MP Annelie Enochson of the Christian Democrat party, an architect who has been a member of the Transport Committee for eight years, ventured that this piece of art is “pornographic” and is critical of public funds being spent in this way. Furthermore, she argued that the work of art may be in conflict with the Penal Code, which classifies it as a crime to display pornographic images in public spaces in a manner that is likely to arouse public outrage.
“When it comes to art, we all must take part in in the public space, so the thoughts and feelings of the locals should matter,” she wrote, among other things.
Former MP Annelie Enochson of the Christian Democrat party, an architect who has been a member of the Transport Committee for eight years, ventured that this piece of art is “pornographic” and is critical of public funds being spent in this way. Furthermore, she argued that the work of art may be in conflict with the Penal Code, which classifies it as a crime to display pornographic images in public spaces in a manner that is likely to arouse public outrage.
“This is a sexualisation of the public space. People often talk about artistic freedom, but why is an artist allowed to take that freedom in front of the rest of us who live there?” Enochson told the news outlet Världen idag.
The mural didn't go unnoticed on social media either.
“Hi, Swedish Transport Administration. I like to line up and paint both some cocks and pussies for SEK 150,000. Pretty stingy to only paint a single pussy for that sum, I believe,” one netizen scoffed.
Some passers-by also seem to have been offended by Falkholt's image, as the genitals have been covered with black paint, only to be painted anew.
Falkholt went on to paint another mural called “Lesbian Witchwhore” in the Gothenburg district of Gårda. It depicts a naked woman stooping from behind against a rosy backdrop of what may be interpreted as flower petals, or, based on the overall impression conjured, rather female genitalia.