Yale Senior Self-Induced Abortions for Art Project
 

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I’ve always been on the fence about abortion but good lord this is just appalling.

I don't even know how to respond to that.

I'm assuming she took pregnancy tests to prove she was indeed pregnant before taking the supplements to induce abortion. Otherwise, how would she know she was actually miscarrying? Even with perfect cycles and perfect timing of intercourse, a healthy woman only has about a 20% chance of becoming pregnant any given cycle.

I am pro-choice through and through and i thought this was very interesting... graphic, but interesting.

I think to some degree it appears that she is "trivializing" abortion, but I don't believe that it was her intention... This topic is difficult for people to handle overall and often, people need to make sense of something... that is seemingly senseless.

if you don't like it... don't go see the exhibit...

*This isn't to downplay how traumatic abortion can be and I don't necessarily agree with what she's doing, but I'll defend her right to do it.

This is sickening.

It may not have been her intention, but I find it appalling and horrifying. It doesn't appear that she is trivilizing, she is trivializing it whether she intended to or not. And I lean pro-choice, too.

I'm sorry, I just think the whole "trying to spark discussion" thing is plain stupid. Well, she got the discussion -- hope it didn't take her by surprise.

Perhaps the piece of art stands for the proposition that a woman ultimately has complete control of her reproductive body. Perhaps this is a sort of 'celebration' of that freedom?

Pretty sick, but it doesn't take much of a stretch to find a deeper meaning here.

Who gives a crap about what deeper meaning exists here? I could shoot an innocent dude in the face and make some vague and ridiculous point about liberating my unseeing consciousness, but that doesn't make it a legitimate thing to do.

This is disgusting and repulsive. Fairly indicative of the artistic and academic communities who think social mores don't apply to them because their callings are loftier.

What an insipid ivory-tower little freak.

...so this is what feminism's ultimate purpose was. Wonderful.

What a good person she is. We can all hope our daughters grow up to be as well adjusted as her.

Fast forward: I wonder if she plans on conceiving and actually giving birth one day. Can her "spark discussion" crap actually affect her health?

Pretty much.

Woooowwwwww. I lean pro-choice too, but god, but this is beyond the pale. Sickening.

Good grief. I don't think that the women's movement has anything to do with this person's art project. The suggestion that women like Betty Freidan and Gloria Steinem were secretly wanting to see women purposely impregnate and miscarry (in the name of art?) says more about your limited rational abilities than it says anything about feminism. The women's movement is about equal rights, equal pay, equal respect. Not this. Get a clue.

My personal opinion is that this whole thing has more to do with the 1st amendment than abortion rights.

Wow. I don't even know how to respond.

A phrase comes to mind:

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

I find it crazy that someone would do this - repeatedly no less - for an art project.

I'm all about women's rights, but that's a bit extreme if you ask me.

Wasn't Coramoor being sarcastic?

Some people are just sick beyond belief.

What appalls me is that Yale would tolerate this. Art should be given every leeway imaginable, but this has clearly crossed a boundary into something totally without worth.

I think performance/experience art in general attracts students who lack the talent to use artistic media which are more traditional- but which also require a lot more work because they must convey an idea even when the artist is not there.

Sure there is some greatness in this art form, but this is one more example (and the worst I have ever seen) of how it lends itself to abuse by talentless exhibitionists.

Yale now claiming it is a hoax. Maybe it was, but surely they've been aware of the story since it broke, and one would think they'd dispel this sooner than 12 hours later.

Overall, very bizarre.

Yep. Here is the link to Yale's statement.

Wow- talk about short and sweet. That is one of the best worded damage control press releases I have ever read. I can infer nothing either way from its content.

I think the statement by Yale is CYA.

Maybe or maybe not. I interpreted the post to be arguing in a similar tone as "look, see what I told ya? I told ya those feminists would ruin the world." I think the comment about "our daughters" that followed made it clear that he thought the same "feminist" influences that inspired this Yale artist would corrupt other young women similarly.

If it was meant as sarcasm, pointing out that this has little to do with feminism at all... then by all means I take back my previous comment.

Yeah, really. So, the whole thing about the videos that were going to be shown of her supposedly miscarrying? They don't exist?

So is her "performance piece" the hissy-fit she's purposefully caused among the sane-minded public? Are we the exhibit? I'm genuinely confused.

Just out of curiosity: does everyone believe her, that she just told people that she did this? I'm not sure I could believe someone with such a fantastic tale. Even NARAL condemned her actions, for heaven's sake!

From the article: "The supposed senior art project of the Davenport College senior was a 'creative fiction'..."

That's tantamount to yelling, "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. If this is the calibur of a Yale soon-to-be graduate, and Yale is to be considered a very high calibur school, we are in for a pathetic future.

I find it crazy that Yale is saying "We wouldn't allow a student to do this if it was real, because it poses a health risk," while also seemingly saying that she came to them and disclosed this information today.

I mean, perhaps I'm missing how it all fits together, but it sounds like Yale, who could have responded to this 12 hours ago before it caught fire is saying:

1) She came and told us that this was fiction this afternoon

2) But we knew it was fake the whole time because we won't allow students to harm themselves like this

I have yet to see any performance art that I thought was worthwhile or worth being called "art."

The statement doesn't say they wouldn't have allowed it, at least not explicitly. It just says that had she really done what she says she did, it would have reased serious ethical and physical and mental health concerns.

But yeah, it's a CYA statement. I just can't imagine paying the kind of money Yale costs for my kid to be doing "art projects" like this. :rolleyes:

I don't know - this is perhaps a little highfalutin for this kind of reaction thread, but it seems like art needs context . . . and that context essentially depends on shitty art, basically in whole.

So yeah - if you're Yale, and you want to push a great art department and be responsible for grand works of cultural significance, I'd say you have to let retards do the artistic equivalent of finger painting or national socialism. Serious, misguided, high-minded errors really show me what is "art" by showing what . . . isn't.

This girl wants to cause an uproar by faking abortions? Great! What a fantastic example of exactly why the art world lacks credibility with everyday people, and why Thomas Kinkade is the most popular American painter today. Whatever statement she thinks she's made has been completely lost on even the smartest people, and she has basically failed in every way. Great job. Here's your D-, and good luck teaching 3rd graders how to work a kiln in a few years. Marry rich.

The kids I knew who went to Yale (and their peer institutions!) were pretty crazy, with equally crazy parents. I wouldn't be surprised if her parents knew exactly what she was doing and supported her "freedom of expression" wholeheartedly.

You blaspheme The Painter of Light?!!! :eek::eek::eek:


And I agree with you.

Thank you both, I needed that LOL moment this afternoon... :D

Link: Ugh, now she is disputing Yale's claim.

This girl needs a psych eval, and that is all there is to it.

"Ultimately inaccurate"? What does that mean?

I particularly like this description of the art:

"Shvarts said her project would take the form of a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Shvarts said she would wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around the cube, with blood from her self-induced miscarriages lining the sheeting.

"Recorded videos of her experiencing her miscarriages would be projected onto the four sides of the cube, Shvarts said, and similar videos would also be displayed on the walls of the room."


Another Yale Daily article on it.

Hokay, so what's the point then? If she can't confirm she was ever pregnant, then she can't state the blood is from "self-induced miscarriages." Why not do her piece on her nasty, used Kotex? It's the same thing (although, I think that's been done already).

Obviously, I'm not smart enough to have ever gotten into Yale because I don't get it. Maybe if I took a lot of mind-altering drugs it would make more sense?

Think about it. The university can't support her. Just imagine all of the protests that will be going on during the art show. Imagine if they publicly support her? Also, they would probably open themselves up for a law suit when she realizes how sick she actually is...which I hope she eventually does. Even if this is performance art, this is not a joke.

Ok... someone help me out here.

From the article:
"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,. Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky said in a written statement e-mailed to the News this afternoon"

I'm not sure that I understand how the form of a woman's body is ambiguous. I also don't understand how the function of a woman's body is ambiguous.

I totally agree with the last statement in the article Kevlar posted. I think this project is completely insensitive to women (and the men in their lives) who have suffered the pain (physical and emotional) of miscarriages.

And, for the record, I like Thomas Kincaid. I don't particularly think I would like bloody Saran wrap cubes. ????

Yale to Cancel Controversial 'Abortion Art' Exhibit Unless Student Admits It's Fiction
Yale University has threatened to pull a senior student's controversial "abortion art" project from an exhibition Tuesday unless she admits she lied about artificially inseminating herself and inducing miscarriages to produce the piece.
The Ivy League school stood by its claim Monday that Aliza Shvarts fabricated a shocking work of "creative fiction" in detailing how she constructed her senior art project.
"In this case, we will not permit her to install the project unless she submits a clear and unambiguous written statement that her installation is a work of fiction: that she did not try to inseminate herself and induce miscarriages, and that no human blood will be physically displayed in her installation," Yale College Dean Peter Salovey said in a statement released Monday.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351984,00.html

that sucks, they're backing down