Abortion = Art? Okay... what?

blindpassion

Well-known member
WARNING: This post is highly sensitive and shocking, its theme is "abortion as an art form" if you feel as if you will be too upset by reading it, please, please don't read it. I don't want any of you lovely people to be overly effected by this shocking story. <3.

Alright. All I have to say to this is "..................... what?"
Aliza Shvarts, a student @ Yale, has created an Art Project out of her own Abortion? Once again I say... what!?
This makes me sick to my stomach... I am in shock! What does everyone think of this?
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?

Read the article here:

Yale Art Major Aliza Shvarts Debuts Abortion Art Project

Quote:
Yale Art Major Aliza Shvarts Debuts Abortion Art Project


Atlanta, GA 4/17/2008 02:51 PM GMT (FINDITT)

A Yale art major has stirred controversy after displaying her senior art project. Aliza Shvarts says controversy is exactly what she wanted to happen. Shvarts’ art exhibition is a nine month documentation of how she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible.” After becoming pregnant, Shvarts would take abortion drugs to induce a miscarriage.

She saved blood from every one of the miscarriages. The exhibition will include video recordings of the miscarriages and the preserved blood. The blood will be mixed with Vaseline to prevent it from drying. The blood will be placed between sheets of plastic that will be wrapped around a cube hung from the ceiling. Her video recordings of the miscarriages will be projected on each side of the cube.

Shvarts has not revealed how many inseminations or abortions occurred during the 9 month period. The sperm donor’s identities have not been revealed.

Shvarts insist her project was not for “shock value.” “I hope it inspires some sort of disclosure. Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it’s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone,” she said.

Also, from FOXNews.com - Yale Officials Conclude Student's Shocking Claim of 'Abortion Art' Was 'Creative Fiction - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News
(Thank-you Shimmer for the article)

Quote:
Yale University officials issued a strongly worded statement Thursday night explaining that a student's shocking claim that she had artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" and then took drugs to induce miscarriages for her senior art project was "creative fiction."

The student, Aliza Shvarts, told three senior Yale University officials, including two deans, that she did not do the things she claimed in her art project, according to the statement.

"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," said Helaine S. Klasky, associate dean and vice president for public affairs in a statement sent to FOXNews.com. "Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials."

"She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art," Klasky wrote.

The Yale Daily News broke the story earlier in the day, and before the university announced that Shvarts hadn't actually performed the acts, news of the project sparked widespread disgust and outrage.

"It’s clearly depraved. I think the poor woman has got some major mental problems," National Right to Life Committee President Wanda Franz said. "She’s a serial killer. This is just a horrible thought."

The timing of Klasky's statement — more than 10 hours after the school paper published the story, which was picked up by several Web news outlets — indicated that Yale officials had taken Shvarts' claims seriously enough to launch a full-scale investigation.

"Her art project includes visual representations," Klasky wrote. "[Schvarts] 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. 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," she wrote. "Had these acts been real they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns."

The stomach-turning display will be showcased next week — complete with depictions of blood samples and videos purporting to be from the terminated pregnancies.

Critics on campus have said the display sounds like a shock-and-awe look at the highly sensitive issue of abortion and called it a sick stunt to get attention. The abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America also condemned the exhibit.

"This 'project' is offensive and insensitive to the women who have suffered the heartbreak of miscarriage," NARAL's communication director Ted Miller said in a statement.

But Shvarts has said the goal of the project is to encourage debate and discussion about the connection between art and the human body.

"I hope it inspires some sort of discourse," Shvarts, whose age was withheld, told Yale's newspaper. "Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it's not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone."

The senior's campus phone has been disconnected, and she did not respond to e-mailed requests for an interview.

Shvarts told the school paper that her sperm donors, whom she declined to identify, were not paid for their participation but added that she did require them to be screened for STDs.

The drugs she claimed to have taken to induce contractions and miscarriages were legal and herbal in nature, according to Shvarts — who didn't specify what they were. The art major also insisted she wasn't concerned about the effects of her research on her own body.

Had she impregnated herself, ob-gyn Dr. Manuel Alvarez said the young woman should have been worried because such actions are extremely unsafe. Alvarez, FOXNews.com's health managing editor, described forced miscarriages as "playing Russian roulette" with a pregnant woman's life.

Shvarts described her project to the Yale paper as a huge cube hanging from the ceiling and swathed in plastic sheeting smeared with her blood from the reported miscarriages. Videos taken of what the college student claimed were self-induced abortions in her bathtub will be projected both on the cube's sides and on the gallery walls.

The exhibit will be on public display from April 22 to May 1 at Yale's Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall. Shvarts will be honored at a reception April 25.

Franz likened the depictions to the human experimentation that took place during the Holocaust. She said the Yale senior's work highlights a stark truth about American society's approach to abortion.

Alvarez, who spoke about the project before the university had announced it was a work of fiction, said a real endeavor of this kind in the name of art would be offensive, harmful and insensitive, especially to women who face difficult choices about pregnancy or who aren't able to conceive.

"Anybody who trivializes a woman’s choice to terminate a pregnancy is really not contributing anything positive to these matters," he said.
 

enjoybeingagirl

Well-known member
WOW! I had the same kind of response as you ... "What .... ?"

I believe in a woman's right to choose but this just seems unnecessary. I would like to know what some other readers think...
 

purrtykitty

Well-known member
I feel abortion is an immensely private matter. Even if you choose to discuss it, for heaven's sake...DON'T DISPLAY IT!! That's just sickening.
 

couturesista

Well-known member
SHe's saying scandalizing was not her intent, what is her intent? What is suppos eto be the message? Not that there is a good one for this type of nonsense.
 

Girl about town

Well-known member
So she got preggers on purpose knowing she would abort the baby for "ART"
Making a mockery of every girl who has had to go through something as awful....... sick bitch!!! what a cold human being!!!!
 

purrtykitty

Well-known member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Girl about town
So she got preggers on purpose knowing she would abort the baby for "ART"
Making a mockery of every girl who has had to go through something as awful....... sick bitch!!! what a cold human being!!!!


Wow, some how I totally skimmed over that part. That is just...there are no words. There are many reasons for an abortion...an art project is NOT one of them.
 

k.a.t

Well-known member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Girl about town
So she got preggers on purpose knowing she would abort the baby for "ART"
Making a mockery of every girl who has had to go through something as awful....... sick bitch!!! what a cold human being!!!!


I see what you're saying but we don't really know what her exact intensions were... I'm very open-minded and i like to really think things through when i see something that shocks me - i start to ask myself questions...

Who said she's making a mockery out of girls who have gone through this?

Maybe her intensions were to raise awareness of, for example rape victims and what they have to go through - many of them choosing abortion..

Sometimes people need to see something as outrageous as this to realize the reality of life and the world around them...life isn't all sunshine and rainbows i'm afraid.

Although i admit this is kinda creepy
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I just wanna keep an open mind and *hope* she's not some psycho, but rather an expressive individual who thought this might be a good idea to convey some kind of message....perhaps it wasn't a good idea to do it this way i dunno
th_dunno.gif


And please don't all go flaming me cause i'm just stating my opinion
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Girl about town

Well-known member
Quote:
Originally Posted by k.a.t
Who said she's making a mockery out of girls who have gone through this?

Um its one thing finding yourself pregnant and not going through with it!!! its a completely different thing to artificially inseminate yourself to become pregnant knowing you will abort the baby for an attention seeking art project, its so cold!!!, i don't need to see the results of a miscarriage on a canvas to know abortion exists, so im not sure what her message is and how she can justify it!!
 

athena123

Well-known member
Disgusting. Right on par with that sicko who tied a dog to a public wall and let it starve to death in the name of "art". People like this make artists look bad. That is NOT art. For those who proclaim that because art is subjective, hence no one can say whether art is good or bad, I proclaim BullSh!t!!!! There IS good art, there's bad art, and there's art that really isn't art at all, but merely serves the self indulgence of the self-proclaimed artist.

Jeez... I hope she flunks.

BTW, I just wanna to state for the record that I do not oppose a woman's right to choose. My disgust is for attempt to pass this off as "art". She probably set back the woman's right to choose by about 50 years. right wing nutter right to lifers will point to this as an example of why women can't have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies and we'll be back to the days of back room, illegal abortions. So thank you very much you stupid little skank!

Yeah, I'm pissed...
 

benzito_714

Well-known member
Coming from an art background debating what is art is a never-ending discussion. Art-just like beauty-is in the eye of the beholder. No matter what we feel personally we cannot discredit this young woman's purpose or project. Artists have used their bodies as mediums for display for ages (examples Ana Mendieta-recreating a rape scene to bring awareness to campus rapes). I have even used my body for nudes. Hell my senior thesis revolved around my pregnancy-my physical changes, my psychological changes, fears, joys and everything in between. Although I don't like and do not fully agree with her means of creating this project. I cannot totally disagree with it. This one is definitely a doozy.
 

benzito_714

Well-known member
Coming from an art background debating what is art is a never-ending discussion. Art-just like beauty-is in the eye of the beholder. No matter what we feel personally we cannot discredit this young woman's purpose or project. Artists have used their bodies as mediums for display for ages (examples Ana Mendieta-recreating a rape scene to bring awareness to campus rapes). I have even used my body for nudes. Hell my senior thesis revolved around my pregnancy-my physical changes, my psychological changes, fears, joys and everything in between. Although I don't like and do not fully agree with her means of creating this project. I cannot totally disagree with it. This one is definitely a doozy.
th_dunno.gif
 

athena123

Well-known member
Quote:
Originally Posted by benzito_714
Coming from an art background debating what is art is a never-ending discussion. Art-just like beauty-is in the eye of the beholder. No matter what we feel personally we cannot discredit this young woman's purpose or project.

Oh yes, we can. And I do. This isn't art. Shock value for the sake of shock value is not art. What talent and thought went behind that? OK, do you want art? I'll collect my dog's manure, pile it up on a nice china plate and display it as art. Does that mean it's art, or am I just indulging myself?

You decide. As the artist, I could proclaim my display of dogdoo is art. As the observer, I'll claim it's bullsh!t and I'll be right.
 

blindpassion

Well-known member
I agree with so many of you ladies
It saddens me so much...
Women who go through abortions and miscarriages, more often then not, are very sad and emotional throughout the process and more often then not suffer emotional complications during and afterwards... I always feel that women who survive those things are so strong and so brave, and really are beautiful people no matter the circumstance, I just feel as if its a brave thing (abortion and miscarriage) that women go through, and its tasteless to display it in this way, that's my two cents...
ssad.gif
I felt sick to my stomach when I posted this article... I just think its so sad.

What is "art" coming to these days! Has anyone heard of the "artist" who chains dogs up in his art studio and leaves them to die from starvation? and people come and watch this happen and its classified as art... it's not art, it's torture... both of those instances of "art" make me hurt. Also, I understand some of your points about how maybe she was doing this to bring awareness, etc... but Ive read many articles on this and shes never come forward as saying thats why shes doing it, and even if she was, I still don't agree.
 

*Stargazer*

Well-known member
Quote:
Originally Posted by athena123
Oh yes, we can. And I do. This isn't art. Shock value for the sake of shock value is not art. What talent and thought went behind that? OK, do you want art? I'll collect my dog's manure, pile it up on a nice china plate and display it as art. Does that mean it's art, or am I just indulging myself?

You decide. As the artist, I could proclaim my display of dogdoo is art. As the observer, I'll claim it's bullsh!t and I'll be right.


Well, technically it would be dogsh*t. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)


I can't let myself think about this story too much.
 

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