View Full Version : NOT art
Flick6
04-17-2008, 03:11 PM
Well miscarriages can be extremely painful and they can be just like a bit of a heavy period, depending on your body and how far along you are. But as someone who has suffered one or two really fcking painful ones, I sure as fuck wouldn't be taking the risk myself. My first miscarriage was as painful as labour.
I cant watch the vid, its too early in the morning for an attention seeking moron.
virgoamm
04-17-2008, 03:12 PM
How absolutely disgusting. I hope this crazy bitch is never able to have any children of her own. >:(
Lola Rose
04-17-2008, 03:12 PM
A m/c is intensly painful. I've heard many women say it's much more painful then birth even. Mine have all been excrutiating, worse then anything else I've experienced in my life. Even at under 5 weeks, it's been horrible beyond imagination.
A forced abortion (b/c medically- a m/c is an abortion too) would be just as painful, I'd imagine.
Alia_of_the_Knife
04-17-2008, 03:14 PM
I actually don't find this to be unethical... but I do find it, as Pretty_Penny said, pretentious and ridiculous. "Art" over the past 40 years, has mostly been dominated by a bunch of rich kids who have never had to (and will never have to) work an honest day in their lives. They then proceed to run aroun and try to shock the hell out of people only to gloat at how supposedly intellectually superior they are compared to everyone else. I've known too many people like this.
Sophia_Ashley
04-17-2008, 03:20 PM
^ agree!
She's pretty much the new form of attention whore in American culture IMO. Do something wacky, a weird...make a video ..toss some blood on it and :gasp: everyone freaks out.
Hatshepsut
04-17-2008, 03:26 PM
I actually don't find this to be unethical... but I do find it, as Pretty_Penny said, pretentious and ridiculous. "Art" over the past 40 years, has mostly been dominated by a bunch of rich kids who have never had to (and will never have to) work an honest day in their lives. They then proceed to run aroun and try to shock the hell out of people only to gloat at how supposedly intellectually superior they are compared to everyone else. I've known too many people like this.
Amen. Elephant shit on a Virgin Mary or cigarette butts in a jar of urine is not art.
Art majors are the bane to my existance, at least the really pretentious ones.
krchab99
04-17-2008, 04:56 PM
Im not prochoice and this is the sickest and saddest thing i can imagine.
Bella21
04-17-2008, 05:38 PM
How absolutely disgusting. I hope this crazy bitch is never able to have any children of her own. >:(
That could even be possible after putting her body through that. She is clearly insane.
As if pro-choice people didn't have a hard enough time, now some bitch has to go shock the general public like that? Way to go, dumbass. Thank you for setting us back. Why don't you go wave pro-choice posters of dead embryo's around on a public corner like all of the other nut-jobs.
Sophia_Ashley
04-17-2008, 05:46 PM
She had to find a new way to piss mommy and daddy off, now that she's done with college and doesn't need their funds.
10 bucks that it's period blood. If it's human blood at all.
She took the ONE thing that hadn't been done, some politics. I"m sure it's the top layer of whatever she's cooking up
She's smart, although i doubt seriously has any street smarts or common sense.
red red red
04-17-2008, 06:40 PM
Pretty much anything can be art. It can be argued that anything that causes social discourse on this level is even good art, functioning exactly as good art is supposed to.
I sort of see this as being an angry, convoluted response to the idea that abortions are for irresponsible women. Like she took this idea to the most disgusting level possible to point out the hypocrisy of that school of thought regarding reproductive rights. I think that the tragedy of this is that she wasn't prescient enough to understand that very few people would "get" that from it, and instead take away a feeling of personal revulsion at the idea of someone reveling in their right to be irresponsible about an issue that is of extreme importance to most people.
I highly doubt the materials she has presented are from genuine miscarriages/abortions, but that doesn't really matter as far as the principle goes.
The only good thing I can take away from this is that seeing art being discussed at this level is an important shift in the status quo. I wish it had been something different. This particular "artwork" makes me want to puke on about seven different levels at once.
ahmeerah
04-17-2008, 06:46 PM
I think it's evil and no better than mass murder.
Before someone jumps on me i believe women should have the choice to abort, but bear in mind that usually the decision to abort is taken after becoming pregnant unintentionally.
This women is deliberately creating life only to destroy it.
And as for art? what could anyone possibly take away or learn from seeing that?
It should be banned.
Ditto. And I've had an abortion so I definitiel am pro-choice.
Sophia_Ashley
04-17-2008, 06:50 PM
Pretty much anything can be art. It can be argued that anything that causes social discourse on this level is even good art, functioning exactly as good art is supposed to.
I sort of see this as being an angry, convoluted response to the idea that abortions are for irresponsible women. Like she took this idea to the most disgusting level possible to point out the hypocrisy of that school of thought regarding reproductive rights. I think that the tragedy of this is that she wasn't prescient enough to understand that very few people would "get" that from it, and instead take away a feeling of personal revulsion at the idea of someone reveling in their right to be irresponsible about an issue that is of extreme importance to most people.
I highly doubt the materials she has presented are from genuine miscarriages/abortions, but that doesn't really matter as far as the principle goes.
The only good thing I can take away from this is that seeing art being discussed at this level is an important shift in the status quo. I wish it had been something different. This particular "artwork" makes me want to puke on about seven different levels at once.
Red I totally agree with you 100%
miabella
04-17-2008, 06:51 PM
i have a friend who uses herbs as birth control. Every month, 6 days before her period, she starts taking herbal infusions of emmenogogues and herbs with abortifacient qualities in concentrated forms, every couple hours. She is in a monogomous relationship but doesn't want to use condoms or hormonal birth control. Because the herbs she uses cause m/c or "abortion", VERY early on and IF there even was a fertilized egg in there, would that be considered murder also?
I doubt this girl actually carried the pregnancies past a month or so. Is there anywhere that says how long she carried them for before she used the herbs?? I read somewhere that 75 percent of fertilized eggs fail to implant anyways. I think her "art" if you prefer to call it that, definitely is for shock value, but it's also interesting because she used herbs that have been used for hundreds of years for the very purpose she used them for. Only in our society, it's considered "murder", and years ago, it was considered medicine.
your friend should be introduced to fertility awareness. no need for the herbs, particularly since she is in a monogamous relationship. also helps a woman get in touch with the workings of her body much more intimately than even use of herbal tinctures and abortifacients.
TheSexKitten
04-17-2008, 06:55 PM
She just made anti-choice look a LOT more appealing to a lot of swing voters and politicians... ::)
Needless to say I think it's bullshit done for shock value, and because "anything can be art" because anyone can overanalyze and thus give value to anything, she's labeling it as such. She's gotten what she wanted but I could also slice open a kitten and smear its blood all over my face and say I'm demonstrating the relationship between kittens, my face, and art. She's a cunt. Sorry.
(yes, yes, a fetus is not nearly the same as a kitten but you get the drift.)
vivianbear
04-17-2008, 07:03 PM
**The more interesting bits are in bold or underlined. I'm so grossed out by what this chic was doing and even more that its going on display. Definitely NOT art to me. Its like glorifying death and abusing the right of pro-choice.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24513
“[Shvarts’ exhibit] turns what is a serious decision for women into an absurdism,” Rahman said. “It discounts the gravity of the situation that is abortion.”
This is my favorite quote for the article. I have a great love and respect for avant-garde art movements throughout history. I too believe that nothing is sacred and extreme expression for entertainment and art can be useful and relevant. I believe in the power of pop-art to change the way that we see and take for granted the resources around us everyday.
I have a hard time not with what this woman has done but how she seems so
trite with her explainations around why she put herself through a process of trauma to create the piece. She's not trying to relate to the experience of women losing children to miscarriages or make a statement about access to aborticatives or abortion resources. In the artical, she just seems stoic and blank about any real emotion attachment to the piece itself at all. Its truely absurd. Maybe people like the Dadaists would be proud, maybe not. I just think she's sort of creepy and too removed from the concept of what she's done.
Is it art to me, yes. Is it useful/valuable within the world of art, no. Why? The artist has not given me any real reason to be invested in her vision.
Thanks for posting this, though, Tiger. I always like to know what's new in the art world these days.
Hatshepsut
04-17-2008, 07:06 PM
From Jezebel.com:
Molly Clark-Barol, a Yale student and commenter on the YDH's website, sums up Shvarts's egocentrism better than I could: "Congratulations, Aliza Shvarts '08: you have single-handedly trivialized not only an entire generation and a half's fight to gain and retain the right to choose, through harassment and against massive odds, but also history of women's struggles, not only politically, but with the emotional, moral, and spiritual impacts of the choice to terminate a pregnancy. You also spit upon every couple who has tried, and failed, sometimes repeatedly, to have children. it is the emotional impact of these struggles, emotional impact that you shamelessly exploit, not explore, in your senior project."
muhuwahaha
04-17-2008, 07:15 PM
it's about time contemporary art stopped sucking.
This, along with starving the dogs to death are perhaps the more significant art ideas to date. In fact these ideas are going to revolutionize the way art in a whole new level.
Its immoral, wrong, and fucking nasty. But its original.
Sophia_Ashley
04-17-2008, 07:19 PM
I truly think true Dada artists would scoff at this attempt....if it was ever "accepted" as art.
Maybe she's trying to recreate the entire dadaism movement.
Deogol
04-17-2008, 07:22 PM
It's a hoax:
An effective one at that.
Now it's art.
Sophia_Ashley
04-17-2008, 07:29 PM
bam I called it!
and yep now it's art. But I agree with Scarlett that it's more a statement.
ahmeerah
04-17-2008, 07:34 PM
^^^^^^OK, yeah it's art.
TheSexKitten
04-17-2008, 07:39 PM
I could just shit in a box and be like 'it's my statement on xyz'. But it means nothing, as art or as a statement, if I don't elaborate significantly. Just my opinion.
Hahaha too true!
vivianbear
04-17-2008, 07:39 PM
HA! That's pretty amazing...
I still have reservations about its intent but whatev's.
AlexxaHex
04-17-2008, 07:39 PM
Art school can either be a positive or negative place, depending on what you are intending to learn, and what you want to take out of it. It can be detrimental to one's art career, if you value the purity and sanctity of self expression and would like to not see it have a price tag or media camera attached to it. I'm just now composing myself from the shock of people trying to tell me how to express myself. And this was about 7 years ago. I think we can say that art school has put this woman in a similar place, one of feeling competitive. Perhaps she feels a need to outdo her contemporaries. Those who lack skill always want to make the loudest bang. Of course we know all about attention whores and what they really have to offer us.
Is it art? What is art anyway? You can't define it. A literal dictionary definition doesn't capture the emotion of aesthetics. Much of what art makes us feel is subconsciously hidden in belief systems, nostalgia (either traumatic or growth-inspiring) and of course in what we want others to see us as. Whether or not the artist's intention is to speak to others is questionable. We don't know if she is doing this for shock value or for political reasons, or that is the question she probably wants to be lingering around the mysticism of her piece. Or if she is doing this as a method of catharsis. She could feel the need to satisfy some sort of personal vendetta, but maybe not in the way we think. My speculation is that she probably has never experienced being pregnant, or she wouldn't make such an attempt. I think her therapy is long overdo. Poor thing.
I truly believe that there is one common thread among all those who make art and those who attempt it. Their intention is to create, and never to destroy. I think that is why this installation leaves such a bad taste in everyone's mouths. Some more than others, especially women who have had negative experiences in childbearing. I can understand that wholeheartedly. But the purpose of being sympathetic does not always coincide with needing to make a statement. In reality, we can't take this experience from her. All of what we do in life is a personal path that others will often disagree with.
Hatshepsut
04-17-2008, 08:06 PM
I must admit that I'm surprised that an event has occurred that has the pro-lifers and the pro-choicers agreeing on something for once (NARAL has condemned this shockfest). I guess there are some things just so repugnant that they go above and beyond.
Sophia_Ashley
04-17-2008, 08:08 PM
I have to wonder if there really is an exhibit after all...
Hatshepsut
04-17-2008, 08:11 PM
Art school can either be a positive or negative place, depending on what you are intending to learn, and what you want to take out of it. It can be detrimental to one's art career, if you value the purity and sanctity of self expression and would like to not see it have a price tag or media camera attached to it. I'm just now composing myself from the shock of people trying to tell me how to express myself. And this was about 7 years ago. I think we can say that art school has put this woman in a similar place, one of feeling competitive. Perhaps she feels a need to outdo her contemporaries. Those who lack skill always want to make the loudest bang. Of course we know all about attention whores and what they really have to offer us.
Very well put. I dated an art major, and competition is absolutely brutal. Your talent is constantly being questioned. I saw variations of big penis contests all the time. It's all been done before, and critics (worst than artists, as those who can't become artists become critics) are quick to judge with labels such as pretentious, copycatting, and wannabeism. Therefore, you are pushed to strive for the extremes. Some people will give anything for 15 minutes.
Bella21
04-17-2008, 08:17 PM
Whether she made it all up or not, she trivialized an important issue that people have been fighting for... for a LONG time. She did NOT help the pro-choice movement. Not at all.
As for whether it is art or not, I have my own opinion of "art". My art history is more than rusty but the people who realized how to make something look further away or 3D or make a new texture... THAT is what is art to me. It's a talent that is reserved for a select few. I don't by into the "everything is art" BS. Fucking with people? That is not art to me.
vivianbear
04-17-2008, 08:45 PM
^^^
Yeah... the more I think about it, it seems less like an artistic statement and more like a cruel practical joke.
On the other hand, I don't believe in the whole "talent of the select few" part. Everyone can be creative and everyone can make art but not all art is vaulable or meaningful. Just my opinion.
Bella21
04-17-2008, 08:56 PM
^I've taken a ton of art and piano classes. I can draw and paint with various mediums and techniques and even (okay, well I haven't done any of this stuff for a long time) create my own tunes on the piano. I never considered myself an artist, though. I learned different techniques in those classes that I was able to use. I created lots of stuff using that info... Honestly, I think I was pretty damn good at it. But, I didn't really come up with something on my own. Sure, I decided that I would draw a tiger, write a song... actually, I guess I'm agreeing with you here. Sure, there is "doing art" like what I've mentioned... "make art" in your words. But, "making art"... at some point there's a line between "creating" and "making". I think that the person who created stippling "created" art. The stuff I did using that technique? I guess you could say that I "made" it. I've never felt that I could really take credit for it, though. Which, in my opinion, leads to situations like this... they do such crazy things in their ATTEMPT to create.
(sorry if that was rambling)
BalletBaby
04-17-2008, 09:04 PM
What happened to painting pretty pictures and sculpting things from clay or making things from metal or crushing porshe's into cubes...etc?
Sophia_Ashley
04-17-2008, 09:56 PM
^ It went away with unicorns, pixie dust and 60 inch pants that held our glow sticks.
UtahMike
04-17-2008, 10:18 PM
I believe that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
I think art is what an artist says is art, an art gallery is willing to display, and/or some art connoisseur is willing to appreciate. I recall the display at the Minneapolis Metropolitan Art Museum of sheets of plywood on the floor charred to various degrees of darkness with a blowtorch. I did not think it was art, but some did.
Art is to evoke an emotional response. Without even seeing this artist's work, I have had an emotional response of disgust. I suspect that is the response which she wanted. Therefore, she is a successful artist.
But when the pro-life forces hear about this, they'll have one more weapon in their anti-abortion arsenal. This one will be even more powerful than little fetus feet.
Susan Wayward
04-18-2008, 12:18 AM
Now she's saying it wasn't a hoax --- http://yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24528
but that she doesn't know whether or not she was pregnant, so, as "a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body" it does work.
I would hire her for something. For what I am not sure.
MrChristopher
04-18-2008, 01:27 AM
I just spent 20 minutes looking for B Kliban's "The Critic" online, and I can't find it. Anyone who knows the picture will know what I'm saying. The "Is is art?" debate is...dumb.
MrChristopher
04-18-2008, 01:39 AM
No, I don't think it's dumb to discuss, I just think it's basically a moot point. The twain will never meet, you know? I really really wish I could find the Kliban picture I was referring to, it would have made my point much clearer. The ethics part of it is stickier, and I will admit I didn't read the last page or two. Carry on!
Jenny
04-18-2008, 05:51 AM
“This ‘project’ is offensive and insensitive to the women who have suffered the heartbreak of miscarriage,” said Ted Miller, a spokesman for the organization.
I don't know who declared that art has to be so sensitive and cuddly to everyone. Art is ideas, not just pretty pictures.
I think it is more likely performance art because... well... I could not imagine my school signing off on that project - particularly for an undergraduate. Like I'm trying to imagine a committee reading that proposal and saying "Sure, okay" and it seems wildly unlikely to me.
Paris - were you asking why the dictionary is not a good source for a definition of art? The "why not?" is eluding me.
hardkandee
04-18-2008, 09:32 AM
I recommend checking out Guillermo Gomez-Pena and La Pocha Nostra for some examples of contemporary performance art that is recognized by the art community. Most of what he/they do is highly controversial and politicized, in your face material.
http://www.pochanostra.com/
If you go to the about us section, check out their 13 questions.
Lola Rose
04-18-2008, 09:35 AM
From Jezebel.com:
Molly Clark-Barol, a Yale student and commenter on the YDH's website, sums up Shvarts's egocentrism better than I could: "Congratulations, Aliza Shvarts '08: you have single-handedly trivialized not only an entire generation and a half's fight to gain and retain the right to choose, through harassment and against massive odds, but also history of women's struggles, not only politically, but with the emotional, moral, and spiritual impacts of the choice to terminate a pregnancy. You also spit upon every couple who has tried, and failed, sometimes repeatedly, to have children. it is the emotional impact of these struggles, emotional impact that you shamelessly exploit, not explore, in your senior project."
yep..... I know she didn't do this to hurt me, but somehow, I can't keep coming back here... almost a "why"?
I wish she'd done a little, just a tiny bit.... of thinking on how this would make people feel. She must be the most morally bankrupt person.....
also- I wonder if some of the people are ok with this are against aminal testing and things of that nature.
Lola Rose
04-18-2008, 09:44 AM
Ok.. and what she did... that's not miscarriage. m/c is just a nicer term then abortion. Taking herbs,medicines, and the like after your egg has implanted to terminate the pregnancy is an abortion. (if in fact you did get pregnant)
virgoamm
04-18-2008, 09:53 AM
What infuriates me about this is when I think about all of the wonderful, loving people that would like to have children and can't and then here's this nutjob that knocks herself up and aborts repeatedly for the sake of "art". Just more proof that life is not fucking fair. :-\
Lola Rose
04-18-2008, 09:59 AM
What infuriates me about this is when I think about all of the wonderful, loving people that would like to have children and can't and then here's this nutjob that knocks herself up and aborts repeatedly for the sake of "art". Just more proof that life is not fucking fair. :-\
ya :'(
true or not, what a shitty thing to do.
Sophia_Ashley
04-18-2008, 09:12 PM
She basically just filmed her periods. She's obviously skirting around the fact that she never knew she was ever pregnant.
I'd hire to scare the 1 dollar, beer nursing boner pants man outta the club. I bet she could do that for sure!
VegasPrincess
04-18-2008, 11:54 PM
I know I am late to respond and therefore am some what off topic, but the bitch who did this piece of art can burn in Hell for all I care.
Okay, as an active member of NARAL, I also am horrified by this. I am pro choice of course, but for most women, abortion is a horriblyy upsetting medical procedure that they chose for the benefit of themselves etc,
By displaying this sort of art, it adds fuel to the fire of the anti-choice movement, in which women who have abortions are portrayed as cold hearted whores who intentionally kill babies with no regard for life.
Anyone who would intentionally impregnate themselves for the sheer amusement of having an aborted fetus to put on display is deplorable.
Lysondra
04-18-2008, 11:59 PM
Am I the only one that when reading this kinda went... wait... this makes like no fucking sense?
In the span of thing, were it even true, meant she could only get pregnant like 2-3 times or so to abort properly? Unless she's aborting a day-old fetus here.
She's just trying to shitstir for drama's sake.
sexy_celeste
04-19-2008, 02:46 AM
I think it's evil and no better than mass murder.
This women is deliberately creating life only to destroy it.
And as for art? what could anyone possibly take away or learn from seeing that?
It should be banned.
I don't agree with this entire post but I do agree with the line in bold. That is what I find unethical. If a person had an unintentional miscarriage and/or aborted an unwanted pregnancy and wanted to document and present that process for an art project, I would not have a problem with it. I do with this.
I agree. I didnt read the whole article, as I found it too upsetting, but that was my main thought.
veronicavale
04-19-2008, 08:54 AM
I would want to see it, but don't know if I could stomach it. It kinda reminds me of one of my fav books, "Geek Love".
AlexxaHex
04-19-2008, 08:57 AM
She basically just filmed her periods. She's obviously skirting around the fact that she never knew she was ever pregnant.
I'd hire to scare the 1 dollar, beer nursing boner pants man outta the club. I bet she could do that for sure!
She can wear your boots!
}:D
I would want to see it, but don't know if I could stomach it. It kinda reminds me of one of my fav books, "Geek Love".
That's one of my favorites too.
Jenny
04-19-2008, 12:21 PM
I would want to see it, but don't know if I could stomach it. It kinda reminds me of one of my fav books, "Geek Love".
I read that recently. I'm still deciding what to think about it. I did go around for a couple weeks after inquiring of all my customers:
"So. Could you imagine being sexually attracted to a stripper with a tail?"
Otoki
06-15-2008, 11:07 PM
Ah, yes I've read about this. If anyone's on SG, there's a great thread on the topic in the Feminist Group.