Is this art?

[houseelf]

Re: Is this art?

I don't want this to come off anti-journalism, but this is one of those cases in which I wonder if society is really benefited by publicizing this awful thing to the masses. We're giving crazy lady the exact platform that she wants.

For the record I adamently do believe in the free press, sometimes I just question the-powers-that-be's judgment and whether this is just sensationalism or real need-to-know news.

Flame away my journalist friends (with as much kindness as you can muster to keep the board respectful).

Kelly

[Momo]

Re: Is this art?

Yale Claims Art Is Hoax
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | April 18, 2008


A Yale University student’s bizarre claim to have repeatedly impregnated herself and induced abortions that she videotaped for use in a senior art project is a work of “creative fiction,” the university said yesterday.



Aliza Shvarts’s senior project, set to go on display next week, included video of her bleeding in her bathtub, as well as plastic sheeting layered with a mixture of Vaseline and post-abortion blood, the Yale Daily News reported yesterday.

“Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages,” a Yale spokeswoman, Helaine Klasky, said in a statement sent by e-mail to reporters. “The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.”

Ms. Klasky suggested that Yale would not have permitted a project of the sort described in the student newspaper. “Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns,” she said.

The newspaper story, which made no suggestion that the artwork might be fiction, spread like wildfire on the Internet yesterday. Traffic was so heavy that, for a time, the newspaper’s Web site was knocked offline. The paper’s editor, Andrew Mangino, did not return calls seeking comment last night.

Ms. Shvarts’s project was so provocative that it repulsed even jaded art majors at a Yale forum where she discussed her work last week, according to the Yale paper. Neither the artist nor the Yale lecturer advising her on the project, Pia Lindman, responded to e-mail messages seeking comment for this article.

Before Yale’s announcement yesterday, a professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, Lee Silver, told The New York Sun that he was dubious about Ms. Shvarts’s claims. “I wonder if the so-called blood may just be menstruation,” he said. He noted that the article did not indicate if she had ever taken a pregnancy test and said she performed an unspecified number of abortions over nine months using herbal compounds.

“It’s hard to believe she depended on herbal medicine,” the professor said. “She’s being a little wishy-washy about the details.”

A science student of Mr. Silver’s once proposed impregnating herself with chimpanzee sperm. Mr. Silver convinced her it was a “horrible thing for her to do,” but his fictionalized account of the event became a book and a play.

Mr. Silver said a science project of the sort Ms. Shvarts described would require approval from an ethics panel, which would never permit it. The Yale spokeswoman, Ms. Klasky, said she did not know whether the planned exhibit contained real blood or whether sperm had actually been solicited from donors, as the artist claimed.

An environmental health official at Yale, Peter Reinhardt, sounded alarmed when told of Ms. Shvarts’s plan to put a mix of her own blood and Vaseline on display in a public building. “I will look into this immediately,” he said. “Normally, that would be out of the bounds of what we would allow a student to do.”

Ms. Shvarts has long displayed a keen interest in issues relating to human reproduction. Her account of her first menstruation, “The Ming Period,” appears on a Web site devoted to such stories, My1stPeriod.com. In 2006, a Yale journal published a photograph of one of her creations, “Disarticulation.” The sculpture, said to be made from plaster, Vaseline, towels, rubber bands, and latex gloves, resembles male and female reproductive organs.

Ms. Shvarts outlined some of her personal philosophy as she took part in a performance art event Ms. Lindman organized earlier this month at Federal Hall in Manhattan, where members of the public were invited to stand on a soapbox and speak their piece.

“We have this huge f—ing institution telling us: ‘That’s what power looks like. That’s what empowerment looks like.’ It’s these patriarchal, heteronormative trappings of a voice, of a right to speak, but really I think we should think more about it,” the Yale student said, according to a video posted on YouTube but removed last night. “We need to stop being sheep.”

Ms. Shvarts also railed against those who take a narrow view of what constitutes art. “People have to stop being so dismissive about what art is. It has to stop hanging on the wall. It has to be something lived, breathed every day,” she said.

The Federal Hall event was sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council with the “generous support of the September 11 Fund,” according to the video.

[Auspicious]

Re: Is this art?

She didn't "explore" them outside of their reproductive purpose! :banghead:

Very true.

[GrayMatterWife]

Re: Is this art?

Ladybug: AWESOME pic. Love it. My DH laughs hysterically at that movie...

[poky]

Re: Is this art?

- Shvarts comes off as not particularly smart nor aware of her own body when she says

In a sense, the act of conception occurs when the viewer assigns the term .miscarriage. or .period. to that blood.

Anyone who has miscarried and any medical doctor will tell you there is a MAJOR difference between a miscarriage and a period. I find her ignorance offensive.

Actually...

I do kinda get what she's getting at there. To my understanding, the best estimates are that something like 50% of fertilized eggs never implant and are disposed of during normal periods right? So if you consider "life" to begin at fertilization/conception, and not at implantation (or later), then technically a lot of periods *might* be "miscarriages". I don't happen to agree with that viewpoint, and it's obvious that these "maybe miscarriages" have nowhere near the emotional or physical impact of one that happens after the woman knows she's pregnant, but I can see where she might think it worth bringing up that there is some ambiguity there...

[madeintaiwan]

Re: Is this art?

- Shvarts comes off as not particularly smart nor aware of her own body when she says

In a sense, the act of conception occurs when the viewer assigns the term .miscarriage. or .period. to that blood.

Anyone who has miscarried and any medical doctor will tell you there is a MAJOR difference between a miscarriage and a period. I find her ignorance offensive.

Actually...

I do kinda get what she's getting at there. To my understanding, the best estimates are that something like 50% of fertilized eggs never implant and are disposed of during normal periods right? So if you consider "life" to begin at fertilization/conception, and not at implantation (or later), then technically a lot of periods *might* be "miscarriages". I don't happen to agree with that viewpoint, and it's obvious that these "maybe miscarriages" have nowhere near the emotional or physical impact of one that happens after the woman knows she's pregnant, but I can see where she might think it worth bringing up that there is some ambiguity there...

I get what you're saying, but it is my understanding that those instances that you speak of would be chemical pregnancies. No implantation occurs and the fertilized egg is expelled at the time of your "normal" cycle. A miscarriage involves implantation and an embryo [starting at 3 weeks and continuing until the end of week 8]. Could be wrong, but that was my understanding. Aside from that, I think she sounds like an ass, talking in circles, talking out of her ass.

[Gwendolyn]

Re: Is this art?

I seriously hope she gets a mental health evaluation quick. For her to feel so emotionally detached from her babies and her body (induced miscarriages/health risks) is a flaming red flag that something is very wrong. Will she ever be able to emotionally attach to a baby? Would a baby be safe with her? I seriously hope people get quickly past the whole "shock art" debate and get her some compassionate help. She's completely dissociated from herself from her body and could really hurt herself or someone else.

ETA: and I would bet the farm that she was abused as a powerless child which has left her feeling completely dissociated from her body, especially her sexual/reproductive systems.

Yes.

I am all for art in its extreme, but this, to me is self-mutilation. What if someone was a cutter and she wanted to exhibit that behavior as art?

To compare this to Duchamp is ridiculous! Duchamp put a urinal on display, this woman is claiming to induce pregnancy and miscarriage for the sake of exhibition. To me that is as red a flag as the kid who kills small animals.

As a side note, I am as pro-choice as it gets, but this , to me, bypasses the abortion debate.

[Auspicious]

Re: Is this art?

To compare this to Duchamp is ridiculous!

Well okay. I think I drew a pretty limited comparison to Fountain, and that what I said about Duchamp isn't that out there.

I am all for art in its extreme, but this, to me is self-mutilation. What if someone was a cutter and she wanted to exhibit that behavior as art?

Like Ron Athey? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Athey

(Credit to the husband for remembering that one! I was going to say Chris Burden, http://www.artnet.com/artwork/55372/413 ... -1973.html [caution: link contains nudity. Of course ]

who was vaguely in danger of lighting himself on fire, just as this chick was vaguely in danger of getting pregnant. )

Sorry to be such a weasel, but I'm swearing off this thread. (Again! I swore off it days ago! For real this time! No more time spent on this one! Must have willpower!)

)
[/quote]

[GreyhoundsRUs]

Re: Is this art?

This woman is obviously uneducated (as many have pointed out). Her behaviors definitely point to some type of underlying psychosis...

Re: Is this art?

This woman is obviously uneducated (as many have pointed out).

she's at Yale. I'd hardly say that's "uneducated". What I will say is that education doesn't equal intelligence, tact, good judgement, class, or many other things that when lacking are usually referred to as "uneducated". she's stupid, she's young, and she's got rotten judgement.