I stumbled across an article in the Yale Daily News, titled “For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse.” The article, as you may guess, discussed the use of abortion and art to make a statement.

Senior, Aliza Shvarts, shockingly, has documented a 9-month process in which she inseminates herself while taking abortifacient drugs to cause miscarriages. She will display the “exhibit” as video recording of the forced miscarriages as well as collected blood from the process.

The ethical and graphic issues associated with this “exhibit” will certainly catapult Aliza into international notoriety, but, I wonder as an artist or an violator of ethics? Aliza explained that the art is intended to spark a conversation about art and the human body.

The Yale Daily news describes the upcoming exhibit:

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.

I could only find one of Aliza’s pieces on the internet, but perhaps it sheds a light on the why.

Aliza Shvarts. Disarticulation, 12 in. x 12 in. x 24in. Plaster, vaseline, towels, rubber bands, latex gloves

[credit: Dimensions Magazine]

Has this gone beyond art in order to offend as many people as possible?

Update: Max Bacon points out that this a hoax.  From the Yale website:

Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art.  Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials.  She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages.  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.

She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.

Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.

[via Yale Daily News]

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