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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
 Posted - 04/17/2008 : 15:10:40
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*sigh* This is why people hate artists.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24513
Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, 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.
The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. |
Given that she attends Yale - one of the most prestigious schools for high-brow, hyper-intellectual art - I highly doubt this woman is an attention whore. After all, fetuses and other human biological material has been used in art before. Not to mention that the remains of ancient dead people are exhibited in natural history museums regularly.
I find what she's doing in this project to be repulsive to my personal ethics (and I am pro-choice. I just don't think that the creation of human life should be treated in a cavalier manner, and in the ideal world we should be working toward, there are no unwanted pregnancies.) I also find what she's doing to be dangerous to public policy since it is mostly likely to vindicate anti-abortionists in the same way that the exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe's federally funded "X Portfolio" allowed conservatives to slash funds for the National Endowment for the Arts.
"I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity," Shvarts said. "I think that I'm creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be."
Yes, yes, you brainwashed, little tool. I have an MFA in fine art. I've heard all this crap before. Artists don't want to make art that mimics life, they want to make art that is part of life. Art that is transformative. Well, thanks, asshole, you've managed to make art that recklessly aids the anti-abortion movement. Watch American public policy transform! Oops, that's not the kind of meaningful dialogue you wanted? You wanted people to have some civil and intelligent discussion about "the relationship between art and the body?" Guess what; you failed. If you wanted to start that kind of dialogue, you should have done what successful visual artists, poets, novelists, actors, playwrites, artistic directors, and so on have always done: creatively invent a compelling falsehood that causes people to see what they are ignorant of or take for granted in a new light.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2008 : 16:25:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
*sigh* This is why people hate artists...Yes, yes, you brainwashed, little tool. I have an MFA in fine art. I've heard all this crap before. Artists don't want to make art that mimics life, they want to make art that is part of life. Art that is transformative. Well, thanks, asshole, you've managed to make art that recklessly aids the anti-abortion movement...If you wanted to start that kind of dialogue, you should have done what successful visual artists, poets, novelists, actors, playwrites, artistic directors, and so on have always done: creatively invent a compelling falsehood that causes people to see what they are ignorant of or take for granted in a new light.
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Yup - I agree! This kind of BS theatrics expresses nothing to me. This stuff was all done before, (and I don't mean the German Dadaists of the 20s - who did I think, accomplish something lasting in their protest art.) This reminds me of the small group if basically now forgotten, self-torturing "artists" of the 60s who had themselves beat up or even shot or dragged over broken glass to "express" or "reveal" some ill-defined social drawbacks. Is this crap coming back?
I'm not saying good art shouldn't repel or disturb the viewer. Intellectual and elitist art has its place too - to me this isn't it either. |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2008 : 17:06:30 [Permalink]
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| So, you guys are saying her art is an abortion? |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2008 : 21:02:31 [Permalink]
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There are some boundaries of taste that should not be crossed.
| The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. |
Well, first, she needs a mental health evaluation. Repeatedly taking morning-after pills (as often as possible for 9 months), can't be safe. You don't place your personal health at that kind of risk to create art, not if you are sane anyway.
Second, I think its safe to say that most people wouldn't consider bodily excretions to be "art". I know I don't.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 04/17/2008 : 21:31:45 [Permalink]
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| If I took a laxative every few weeks, filmed the forced bowel movements, and preserved collections of the feces in the process, could I get a degree from Yale, too? |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 00:31:46 [Permalink]
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Cune.....
| If I took a laxative every few weeks, filmed the forced bowel movements, and preserved collections of the feces in the process, could I get a degree from Yale, too? |
As this forum's foremost promulgator of turd humor, I would be happy to fund your defecation derby, film it, and put it in major theaters around the country under the title "Expelled"! |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 04/18/2008 : 02:44:38 [Permalink]
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Ok ghouls, break out a beer 'cause you're gonna need it to cry in:
"HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A Yale University art student duped the student newspaper with a story about inducing repeated abortions on herself and using the blood for her senior art project, the school said Thursday.
The story about Aliza Shvarts' project, published Thursday in the Yale Daily News, swept across blogs and media outlets - including the Drudge Report, Fox News and The Washington Post - before Yale issued a statement saying it investigated and found it all to be a hoax that was Shvarts' idea of elaborate "performance art."
"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 Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky.
Shvarts'"performance art" included visual representations, a news release and other narrative materials, Klasky said. When confronted by three senior Yale officials, including two deans, Shvarts acknowledged that she did not seek any abortions.
Shvarts told the student paper that she planned to display a work that consisted of a cube lined with plastic sheets with a blood-and-petroleum-jelly mixture in between, onto which she would project video footage of herself 'experiencing miscarriages in her bathroom tub.'" 
But such poor timing! She should have burst it forth, as it were, at the first of the month.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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| Edited by - filthy on 04/18/2008 04:10:52 |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 05:36:51 [Permalink]
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| There are some boundaries of taste that should not be crossed. |
Given an extreme enough example, I think everyone (except some psychotics) would agree on that. One extreme would be the idea of a serial killer who regards his methods as an art form.
| Second, I think its safe to say that most people wouldn't consider bodily excretions to be "art". I know I don't. |
Anything which is creative expression put in the context of art is art. This says nothing about whether or not it is good or bad art, has any value to anyone other than the artist, or whether it is an artistic practice which should be permitted or not. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 05:46:00 [Permalink]
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| Anything which is creative expression put in the context of art is art. This says nothing about whether or not it is good or bad art, has any value to anyone other than the artist, or whether it is an artistic practice which should be permitted or not. |
Smearing shit on the walls is not art, its a health hazard. No matter what anyone says, it will never be art. If Da Vinci hisself was doing the smearing of fecal matter and painting faces with it, it still wouldn't be art.
| before Yale issued a statement saying it investigated and found it all to be a hoax |
Ok, NOW I can appreciate this as a work of art! An elaborate hoax, that fools newspapers and skeptics, is definitely worthy.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 05:48:11 [Permalink]
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| Given that this whole thing is faked, I'm no longer offended by it, but I'm also not impressed. This is more of a prank than a thoughtful performance. Filthy, I agree that it would have been most appropriate if done at the beginning of April! |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 05:51:34 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote: | Smearing shit on the walls is not art, its a health hazard. No matter what anyone says, it will never be art. If Da Vinci hisself was doing the smearing of fecal matter and painting faces with it, it still wouldn't be art. |
Oh quit putting "art" up on a pedestal. When smeared shit on walls is put in a gallery, declared a work of art by someone who is regarded by society as a professional artist, reviewed in art publications by art critiques as art, it is art. Saying it is a health hazard may be true, but there is nothing stopping something from fitting into the category of both art and health hazard. I'm so sick of this glorification of art, as if something which is art is automatically regarded as skillful and/or deeply thoughtful.
| Ok, NOW I can appreciate this as a work of art! An elaborate hoax, that fools newspapers and skeptics, is definitely worthy. |
It was art either way, and whether you or anyone else appreciates it or not.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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perrodetokio
Skeptic Friend
275 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 06:09:39 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Cune.....
| If I took a laxative every few weeks, filmed the forced bowel movements, and preserved collections of the feces in the process, could I get a degree from Yale, too? |
As this forum's foremost promulgator of turd humor, I would be happy to fund your defecation derby, film it, and put it in major theaters around the country under the title "Expelled"!
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HAhahahahahahahaha! You´ve lit-up my morning!
Cheers! |
"Yes I have a belief in a creator/God but do not know that he exists." Bill Scott
"They are still mosquitoes! They did not turn into whales or lizards or anything else. They are still mosquitoes!..." Bill Scott
"We should have millions of missing links or transition fossils showing a fish turning into a philosopher..." Bill Scott |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 06:13:39 [Permalink]
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I caught a reek of rodent with the first paragraph and decided not to comment until I learned a little more. I mean, let's face it, who would run the health risks of this sort of thing? I don't know exactly what those risks might be, but it seems to me that there must be some.
Anyway, it was a pretty good if disgusting gag (heh) and I hope the chick didn't get in too much trouble for it.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 07:21:09 [Permalink]
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Hmmmm.....
There's so much here. On the one hand, I think if it were real, that she actually did this, I don't care. It's so extreme it reflects mostly on her as an individual -- as either being crazy or an extremist or stupid -- and a little on the university for allowing such a project. It doesn't reflect on the political landscape in any honest fashion because her actions, had they been real, were far outside what anyone would consider reasonble in our society.
That said, of course the Right Wing Echo Chamber picked it up as though it were some heinous new liberal pass time and bounced it around for a while. They, being extreme themselves, arn't concerned with what's reasonable and quickly developed it into an anti-choice (aka personal freedom) rally cry. The only redeeming quality to the actual hoax project was to highlight how that gargantuan propaganda machine works. I have to assume this was part of the project's intent, to dupe the extreme right wing and smoke out their propaganda system a bit for the gullible public to see.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. I wouldn't be surprised if they were still talking about it on Right Wing radio as though it were real, outraging the millions who put on their AM radio in the morning and shut it off at night without ever changing a station. Or maybe it was aknowledged as a hoax and used to skewer higher education and the liberal arts some more. At best it was just dropped like a hot potato in favor of the ongoing repeating drone of "Barak Obama loves Reverand Wright hates white America bitter gun owners."
Barak Obama loves Reverand Wright hates white America bitter gun owners.
Barak Obama loves Reverand Wright hates white America bitter gun owners.
Barak Obama loves Reverand Wright hates white America bitter gun owners.
Barak Obama loves Reverand Wright hates white America bitter gun owners.
Barak Obama loves Reverand Wright hates white America bitter gun owners.
Barak Obama loves Reverand Wright hates white America bitter gun owners.
Now go out and vote. |
-Chaloobi
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 08:36:37 [Permalink]
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filthy wrote: | I mean, let's face it, who would run the health risks of this sort of thing? I don't know exactly what those risks might be, but it seems to me that there must be some. |
I didn't question it because of the precedent set by Chris Burden.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Burden
Burden's career as an artist was made by his his performance "Shoot", which he did while a graduate student in fine art, and which consists of having a friend shoot him in the arm in a gallery space. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2008 : 08:41:25 [Permalink]
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There is also a precedent of human fetuses being used on art. Here's one recent example:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-08/10/content_467851.htm
While I tend to think the artists themselves (at least consciously) have good and honest intentions, this sort of thing does not get any subtle ideas across or inspire any kind of civil and rational debate. It mostly inspires debate over what should be allowed with art, making it nothing more than art about about art. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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using abortion as an art medium
