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Student Aliza Shvarts’ Yale Project Uses Abortion For Arts’ Sake

TO the pages of the Yale Daily News where art student Aliza Shvarts is using abortion as a medium for art and political discourse, it says here.

Shvarts’ art project 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.

Says she: “I hope it inspires some sort of discourse. 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.”

Of course it isn’t. Anorak’s own installation Vomit In Sock (“A damning indictment of consumerism” – T. Emin; “If only I’d thought of it first , f*** it!” – D. Hirst) triggered no little controversy. But what is modern art without that?

“I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity,” says Shvarts. “I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.”

The display of Schvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.

Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.

Says she: “It was a private and personal endeavor, but also a transparent one for the most part. This isn’t something I’ve been hiding.”

As if…

Anorak

Posted: 17th, April 2008 | In: Anorak In New York Comments (12) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink

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White Light says:
June 11th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

I see the message she is TRYING to give but to me she is no better than anyone else who has an abortion because most will abort for good reasons where as this idiot is purposely getting pregnant,then killing her own children while she videos it!
to be honest i wouldnt go see it myself it sounds rather sick, and imo it does not classify as art….these people shouldnt be dubbed artists…but extremists!

seriously, a 50 year stint in the nearest mental hospital wouldnt go a miss!

M and A

She might be able to use the 50 yrs stint for her art too

Julia Coleman says:
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:24 pm

I am astounded and dismayed by this. I am anti-abortion but relize that there are circumstances where a certain amount of flexibility needs to be given, such as rape cases and underage pregnancy. However to concieve in order to kill seems insane and criminal. That anyone, especially those who look at this and in any way encourage or condone it, could consider this to be art is inconcievable to me (no pun intended).

I’d be unhappy, but willing to admit there might be some useful discourse, if this were to have been achieved with aborted foetuses that had happened anyway, but the it is the deliberate waste of life that is so distressing in this case. I can see no logical reason for, nor no artistic merit in such an approach.

Robert Slatford says:
April 21st, 2008 at 12:57 am

It’s a wonderful idea, but with the labor required, I can only hope that she achieves the amount of discourse she deserves. Unlike these many people before me, I am in total support.

Tom White says:
April 19th, 2008 at 6:48 am

This is irresponsible and grotesque. To think that this will add anything meaningful to the discussion surrounding abortion is pure ego. I find this kind or ‘art’ to be insensitive and unnecessary. If she thinks she is shocking people into thinking then she clearly has no grasp of the issues surrounding abortion. This is horrific attention seeking of the worst possible kind and I agree with the assessment that this is cold-blooded intentional murder. To create a life purely with the intention of ending it before it is born? Disgusting behaviour.

the watcher says:
April 18th, 2008 at 12:23 pm

perhaps after reading the reactions on here she achieved what she set out to achieve.
to shock people into thinking.

Gigi says:
April 17th, 2008 at 10:40 pm

I think the ignorant low life bitch should be arrested for premeditated murder. I hope to follow her trial and ultimate death sentence. She doesn’t even deserve an insanity plea! She’s a cold blooded murderer!!!!!!!!!!! So I guess the No Tolerance policy doesn’t apply! Just punish the 6yo boy who slapped a little girl’s butt on the playground! What’s has happened to this country!??? Sounds like she should return to ???Russia…..

John says:
April 17th, 2008 at 9:42 pm

This girl is just out of her mind. She thinks she is stimulating meaningful public discourse when in fact all she has done is make an entire nation think she’s a total whackjob who gets a kick out of getting knocked up and having abortions. And pro-choice feminists will all be clamoring for her right to smear vaginal fluid and blood all over a cube of plastic? Oh yeah…well where my right to jerk off on their faces and hang them from a ceiling?