Becoming Somebody

Every now and again, the art world wakes from its hazy fog of pretentious, postmodern self-importance and forces something provocative on the populace. Of course, most normal people would rather wedge hot, metallic spars into their eyes than voluntarily attend an art show, especially a postmodern one. But most normal people are stupid and boring, and artists love to prove this by fucking with the minds of the Average Joe and Jane, who are predictably dumbfounded by, let’s say, a Jesus painting smeared in elephant dung or a mason jar filled with a preserved pig fetus. I mean, really. How does anyone not get it?

Personally, I don’t mind being lumped in with the stupid and boring on these matters because, as pretentious an self-important as I pretend to be, I’m really just a wiseass with no self-esteem and nothing better to do than make fun of people and things I don’t like, usually doing so with veiled literary references and pop-culture satires. It doesn’t really matter to me on which side of the fence I happen to fall. But, while I think a good number of postmodernists are bat-shit insane, I have to give the accomplished artist his or her due for taking a chance and encouraging discourse, even if I don’t get it or think it’s just sort of dumb and uninteresting.

However, there are other times when these nut jobs get carried away in their self-professed genius and distract from the social and/or political discourse they are trying to encourage. And that leads me to Aliza Shvarts, a Yale University art student whose senior art project is not just nutty but downright damaging to an important movement, perhaps doing more to set it back than any recent court decision, depending on how far the media decides to carry the story. You see, Shvarts’ little project, which debuts next Tuesday, is “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.¹”

The goal of the project, according to statements made by the artist to the Yale Daily News, is to encourage discussion on the relationship between art and the human body. This is a worthwhile conversation to have, especially in a high-level academic setting like Yale, but the method here is a little off the beaten path, to the say the least.

I’m going to leave out whether or not I think this project is in good taste, is unethical or amoral, is an indication of some deep-rooted psychological issue in the bowels of Shvarts’ blackened soul, or any other taste-based critique of the young artist and her work. Rather, the more important issue here is the socio-political implications of this project on the greater pro-choice/pro-life battle, which is surely going to lurk its way into popular conversation now that Baron Von Pontiff and his team of child-raping aides has hijacked the cities and airwaves of this once-great secular nation.

Perhaps it is youthful naiveté that makes Shvarts believe the topic her project will provoke involves the relationship between biology and art. But anyone with even the faintest whiff of life experience can see the way this will play out in the public forum. Every pro-life yahoo tuned to Fox News will have a field day shouting about the ways Roe v. Wade has made a mockery of life and has allowed deranged far-out artists to drench their cervices with semen using little more than a turkey baster, a well-positioned mirror, and a presumed mandate from hell. Pro-choice enthusiasts will then be forced into the absurd position of having to defend Shvarts’ behavior, because somehow being pro-choice has come to mean that you also love killing babies and smearing afterbirth onto the walls of some little student gallery in Connecticut. That’s the discussion that will ensue thanks to Shvarts’ little endeavor.

Now, perhaps that is a worthy debate to some, but let’s get real for a second. This type of bullshit is what fragments discussion into its most extreme elements, forcing the nuts who reside on the periphery of rational thinking into the driver’s seat of social and political conversations. And that’s why nothing gets done. It’s like filming Boy George sodomizing a ferret and then expecting people to civilly discuss the nature of human sexuality.

No, fragile artist. What will happen is that every anti-gay-rights lobby in America will take the streets telling residents of Podunk, USA that letting gay people get married will soon lead to men marrying beasts, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! And then sane gay people and those who love and respect them will have to spend unnecessary time telling everyone what they already should know, that the average gay person has no interest in banging farm or domesticated animals and the Boy George-on-innocent ferret exhibition was just some extremist artist trying to get known and not to worry. It’s one big waste of time, and a distraction from the real issue.

The truth about the majority of people who believe in a woman’s right to choose whether or not the time and circumstance are right for her to bring a child into the world is that these individuals see redeeming social value in the legal protection of this right. Contrary to what Diablo Cody would have you believe, unwanted or unplanned pregnancies are not always blessings in disguise. There are many factors that go into the decision to have an abortion. It’s not simply irresponsibility or blood lust. The moral and ethical questions involved in abortion (1) hinge on scientific evidence not yet available in the medical community, or (2) are rooted in the absolute right to privacy between a patient and her doctor, meaning there can be no outside government interference in the medical decisions made by an individual while under the care of a physician.

These points raise genuine points of debate, the discussion of which is absolutely necessary in order to reach a societal consensus on this or any issue. There is inherent societal value in discussing — because science is unable to provide the answer — when life begins. There is value in discussing whether or not that matters, and whether doctor-patient privacy issues are the overriding factor in the ethical and legal standing of abortion. It can be taken even further by granting early-term abortions but still outlawing those in the second and third trimesters. These, and many others, are all worthwhile discussions that society must have.

But we too often get distracted by intellectually marginal figures like Shvarts or your favorite abortion-clinic bomber, those with extreme ideas and methods that polarize people, divide them into opposing camps, and create an us-versus-them dynamic that leads to nothing but resentment, hostility, and anger.

Now, does Shvarts deserve a break due to her age and relative inexperience? Absolutely. But serious questions need to be asked of Yale’s faculty members, most of which should know better. Did anyone discuss the long-term health issues that could arise by repeated forced miscarriages in such a short period of time and explain to Shvarts that perhaps she should reconsider her decision not to consult a physician? Was the possible social and political effect of the project carefully thought out between student and teacher? If so, how does the faculty explain the project? These are all topics that need further investigation. Of course, I don’t expect to get much from the Yale faculty. I can only imagine the pretentious, delusional jerkoffs teaching art school at Yale.
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¹ Click here to read the full article from the Yale Daily News.

Tags: Aliza Shvarts, art student, forced miscarriage, Yale

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 1:28 pm and is filed under News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.