Thursday, April 17, 2008

Abortion Art

The Yale Daily News (what is it with Yale recently?) reports:

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

She then rants about what, not being free to express herself?

This is one sick woman, and one sick institution. Ann Althouse thinks it's a hoax, and I hope she's right.

Update: Yale claims it's merely performance art, that she didn't really do what she claimed.

10 comments:

Happy Elf Mom (Christine) said...

I hope it's a hoax as well, Darren. Messed up.

Ellen K said...

As an art teacher, this is a graphic explanation of why I am not a professional artist. This is the same mentality that led me to believe that the pictures I liked to paint were old fashioned or passe. This is what many of the college art programs want. And what is scary is that many of these same folks will be looking for certification to teach in a school.

Anonymous said...

Holy cats.

I'm glad it's apparently a hoax but what incredibly poor taste.

Maybe I'm a Philistine but I tend to prefer art that, you know, uplifts me?

Marbel said...

Even though it's a hoax... what kind of person thinks something like this up?

Darren said...

A disturbed person.

I'm sure her parents are proud.

Ellen K said...

As an addendum, I just returned from our district's art show. We had two professional artists for judges. Many of the drawings that were chosen were twisted, macabre or grotesque. I don't have a problem with using imagery to illustrate a point, but far too often violence is seen as cutting edge. To my mind, that's just as pornographic as anything that drifts in the dredges of the Internet. But that is much too often what college and university art programs promote. As one who opted out for the reasons of sanity and personal ethics, I feel sorry for talented kids who must prostitute their skills in this manner. As for an adult student who thinks that her five minutes of fame merit this type of disgusting display, she will be forgotten. I am ashamed of art like this. And it doesn't have to be this way. There's just too much celebration of the negative.

Ellen K said...

Here's another disgusting act masquerading as "art". I linked the facebook page that is protesting this "artist" as an exhibitor in the show.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Artist-Leaves-Dog-To-Die-on-Exhibition-Display-82091.shtml

RJ said...

For anyone that is interested, you might find my art blog of interest, particulary my sarcastically titled post, "Anything Can Be Art".

A brief quote from that essay:

"...postmodern art to a large extent continues [the] tradition of nihilism and the rejection of the traditions and values of Western civilization. Everything that was good is now bad. Everything that was bad is now good...."

http://rjart.blogspot.com/2007/09/anything-can-be-art.html

Darren-- I am a high school art teacher and frequent reader of your blog, which I enjoy very much.

Rick

Darren said...

Thank you. Where are you from?

RJ said...

I teach Two-Dimensional Art at Arts Academy in the Woods, which is a charter school for the fine and performing arts in the Detroit metro area.

Work by my students can be found here:

http://www.artsacademy-woods.org/departments/visualart/visualarts2d.htm