Move over, Andres Serrano and Karen Finley: Here comes blood-smearing Yale art student Aliza Shvarts; Update: Video link added; Update: Sick joke
Scroll down for updates…update: one sick joke…blechhh!
It sounds like the sickest kind of Onion parody and perhaps part of it will turn out to be fabrication, but there’s no question that Yale art student Aliza Shvarts is a budding left-wing agent provocateur in the grand tradition of piss-peddling, NEA-funded radical Andres Serrano and chocolate-smearing, NEA-sponsored moonbat performer Karen Finley.
The Yale Daily News has the scoop–and assuming it’s not a belated April Fools’ joke, prepare for some significant donor backlash:
Art major Aliza Shvarts ‘08 wants to make a statement.
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. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts’ project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock . saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.
But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for “shock value.”
“I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts said. “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.”
Oh, heavens, no. I’m sure it’s merely intended to demonstrate her profound respect for human life!
The “fabricators,” or donors, of the sperm were not paid for their services, but Shvarts required them to periodically take tests for sexually transmitted diseases. She said she was not concerned about any medical effects the forced miscarriages may have had on her body. The abortifacient drugs she took were legal and herbal, she said, and she did not feel the need to consult a doctor about her repeated miscarriages.
Shvarts declined to specify the number of sperm donors she used, as well as the number of times she inseminated herself…
…”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.”
I’m sure Jose Serrano and Karen Finley agree.
Shvarts emphasized that she is not ashamed of her exhibition, and she has become increasingly comfortable discussing her miscarriage experiences with her peers.
“It was a private and personal endeavor, but also a transparent one for the most part,” Shvarts said. “This isn’t something I’ve been hiding.”
It’s so “private and personal,” she’ll reportedly be displaying blood from the miscarriages in a huge box covered with the fluids mixed with Vaseline, topped off with videos of her expelling the blood:
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.
Here’s the Yale School of Art website where photos of the undergrad senior art exhibits are featured.
Next up for Shvarts: A NYTimes op-ed stint, a gig as Planned Parenthood’s next “I Had an Abortion” t-shirt model, and a new role in the next Vagina Monologues alongside Jane C. Fonda.
***
Jim Hoft: This beats the US flag-stomping art project hands down.
Allahpundit thinks “it can’t be real. It’s too broadly parodic of too many things: the trivialization of abortion, modern art’s fascination with effluvium, amoral academic culture justified as a form of faux-profound “consciousness-raising,” etc etc etc. All that’s missing is some sort of representation of Christ as a gay Nazi.” Hey, I didn’t think Sex Week at Yale could be real, either. But it is.
Photo source: Soapbox
***
Gerard Vanderleun’s got video of Abortion Art Girl going on an anti-”patriarchal heternormative rant.”
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BS.
The goal (as with every untalented, narcissistic artist) is to draw maximum attention to oneself with the least expenditure of talent or creativity.
Um, how does one respond…? Let me see, the best thing I can think of is ignore her like Mapplethorpe. Oh, and take your money out of Yale.
Psychopathic behavior. Insanity.
In a sane world, this would be confiscated by police, and used as evidence in a trial on X counts of first degree murder. Getting pregnant ONLY to kill the child? At least most people who have abortions do so because of ‘accidental’ conception (not that I’m saying that is okay either).
You would think at some point her advisor would have maybe served as a sanity check.
In a decent, strong-willed world, she would be charged with multiple homicide and given a death sentence.
In our world, she’ll probably find fawning coverage from the Old Grey Cat Lady, several book deals, and the unceasing financial support of the Left.
I’m truly disgusted, simply by the concept. This woman is sick and needs to be locked away in a mental institution. Think about it – she murdered several of her own children for the sake of art, to send a message, to make a statement. How sad for her.
Please, to anyone reading this, pray for her.
I’m betting that eats alone a lot.
“Oh no. Here comes Shvarts! Let’s get out of here before she sees us. If she sits down, she’s gonna start droning on about her miscarriages again.”
Um, aren’t there all sorts of blood-safety issues as well in this “display”?
…or at least a menstrual institution.
She’s insane.
Any institution that allows her to do this as a “project”; and any institution(s) that allows, and helps, her to display it, is/are even worse.
It’s so indescribably, incredibly sick and nutty, I couldn’t help but laugh while I read about…God forgive me.
What a sick B*tch.
Sickest thing I have ever heard of. Is the school really going to allow such a thing?
Ive never seen a cow in leotards and shorts before!
It is as bad as this:
http://www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/04/inspirational_art.php
Even if this is a prank, she’s still a sick B*tch for even thinking of it. Where the hell are her parents?
And we turn to our guns and our religion. And that’s bad?
What an awful “art project” – shame on the student and the mentor who allowed this to happen. It is depressing to see what passes as “art” today – just imagine that this student will probably one day receive an academic degree for fabricating horrible “art pieces” like this. This project ought to be condemned even by pro-choicers – getting pregnant only to be able to have an abortion is an abomination…
she’s sick. this is the type of person Harvard ‘educates’? and someone else thought it was a “good idea”? and moreover, how the eff does this spark debate about “art and the human body.” this is a sick b!tch, and i hope she’s done enough damage to render her body unable to ever carry a child.
What a sick, sick individual. I bet her mommy and daddy are real proud.
This is the kind of “art” we can all do without.
Ah jeez. This isn’t art.
Just because an activist puts together a collage of their junk and is enrolled in an art class, doesn’t make it art.
Typical rich, radical leftist, east coast liberal. Why I’m sure us bitter folk won’t git it, but BHO will. Maybe he will send his daughters to Yale to learn a real edu-cashun.
Not worth the cost of the bullitt.Do you think she votes Republican?
Shvartz is typical of the students are admitted to study at Yale.
If this is considered art that warrants a passing grade in a prestigious university, then pray for us all. This is the kind of depravity that took place just prior to the fall of the Roman Empire.
Her parents must be so proud that their education dollars are being used to sensationalize the murder of their grand children at the hands of their own daughter.
My horror and abhorrence here is beyond description.
The complete lack of respect for life she shows is staggering. Yale should have something in it’s standards of conduct to prevent such an atrocity from ever occuring again Miss Shavarts should be expelled.
Where are REAL artists like Charles Russell, Fredrick Remington, Grant Wood, Whistler, David Mann, et al, when we need them?
Maybe it’s backlash from the zero-tolerance policies of her K-12 years.
#13: On April 17th, 2008 at 11:45 am, John Ansell said:
“Even if this is a prank, she’s still a sick B*tch for even thinking of it. Where the hell are her parents?”
Agreed.
Even if this is a hoax, just having this in her mind is still depravity.
Any bets as to how long it will be until one of our beloved trolls entertains us with a defense of this depravity?
Or, will this be a rare instance where they just shut up?
Of course this woman should get a psychiatric evaluation. This is not the act of a sane person.
In fact, the whole department should be evaluated. Look at the link to the senior art exhibit. Everything there is, IMHO, crap. Especially pic 24, a pic of a radiator. Is that even art? Or did someone take a random shot and forgot to delete it from the camera.
The Old Masters must be rolling in their graves.
This is literally the most disgusting thing I have ever read. I want to puke.
A disgusting stunt masquerading as “art.”
Only the dimwits of the Left could feign appreciation for “art” of this type; and not because they see any inherent merit in the thing, but because they’re afraid their Lefty peers will view then as unsophisticated if they don’t “get it.”
A perfect example of the “Emperor’s New Clothes” effect forcing supposedly intelligent people to act like a stupid herd of sheep.
This is wrong beyond belief! What is our nation coming to?! I mean didn’t one of Hitler’s officers/friends have an artist wife who used the “harvested” skin of Jewish concentration camp victims to cover lamp shades as a form of “artistic expression?” Is this where we are headed?
The only good thing that may come out of this is her inability to reproduce in the future.
I detect a postmodern deconstruction impulse redolent of the Velvet Underground. Ooh, that smell!
Someone thinks a little to highly of themselves especially after pulling something as horrid and self-serving as this off. This, this, person is of the lowest common denominator. What a joke Yale and Harvard have become.
Who would do anything like this and who will show up to view this madness?
Actually, granite…
I forwarded the article to MM earlier this morning (though in retrospect, I am sure she had probably already seen it) and said that I thought it defied credulity and was beyond the pale.
…repeated self waterboarding.
I know, wishful thinking on my part.
The Ivory Towers strikes again! Can’t anyone at that school see that this kid is SCREEMIN’out for help??!This is the same problem with sex changes.Those people need aggressive counseling,not self mutilation. This girls in the same boat! I think I’m gonna go hurl now………
This makes me want to throw up again and again, but maybe I shouldn’t, Yale might make it art. Are we for real? Abortions for Art. I don’t think the term mentally ill is strong enough to describe this individual.
# 28 On April 17th, 2008 at 11:53 am, Cicero said:
“A disgusting stunt masquerading as “art.””
Yep.
In fact, that’s an understatement.
“Only the dimwits of the Left could feign appreciation for “art” of this type; and not because they see any inherent merit in the thing, but because they’re afraid their Lefty peers will view then as unsophisticated if they don’t “get it.””
Agreed.
But, I’m not surprised.
The tame, but still puzzling beginnings of this way of thinking about “art” were introduced at least as long ago as when I was in high school, in English class (HS, 1970).
“A perfect example of the “Emperor’s New Clothes” effect forcing supposedly intelligent people to act like a stupid herd of sheep.”
Agreed again.
A spot-on example of an “educated idiot”, as my father used to say, and still says.
Contact:
Richard C. Levin, President
Email: presidents.office@yale.edu
Telephone: (203) 432-2550
Fax: (203) 432-7105
Office of Public Affairs
PO BOX 208279
New Haven, CT 06520-8279
(203) 432-1345
Arggh! I can’t the voice out of my head! Mel Brooks going: “Shvarts!…Shvarts!”
spo-con: what these kids need is ‘real’ education. Get rid of these Liberal teachers and professors. Get back to real science. Get parents involved in their own kids. Let go of this fantasy ‘diversity is good’. Get rid of the unions and the teachers who know not how to teach, just indoctrinate. Start with values, morals, ethics, and maybe even God.
You know you’ve reached rock bottom when Anti and pro-abortionist agree this is wrong.
Yale also has David Gelertner. Drawing Life, about his surviving the “unibomber,” changed my life. Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion is another fine book.
#33:
Good for you!
That’s one down, only a gazillion to go.
There may be hope for you, yet.
Film yourself, save the puke and you too can have a Yale-quality senior art project.
She intentionally impregnated herself to turn around and, in a premeditated fashion, kill the children? And, then, she turns around to make a video of it that she calls “art”?
Where does one even begin to comment on something this horrific and stupid?
Once upon a time this type of person would have been quietly escorted to the nuthouse for a six month stay at the state’s expense.
In the news here in Germany today: 16-year old guy fabricates a fake dead human embryo in a glass and leaves it in a restaurant, triggering a police investigation. Meant to be a “funny prank”:
http://tinyurl.com/44ktgn
Sick. Sick. Sick.
Give her an “F” for the course and a one way ticket to Belleview’s psychiatric ward!
This girl is SICK!
This sick episode is also a perfect example of the whirlwind being reaped, after the wind was sown, in what was essentially a cultural revolution three to four decades ago.
Not only is this girl sick so is the University. I just wrote the president of the University (thanks to Silkyinfamous), and told him my disgust. I hope more people do.
Why?
I am stupefied.
Is there no conscience? Is there no empathy? Is there no consideration for others? For yourself?
I suggest she did not need to go through this stunt. Instead she may be able to call upon many in the abortion fight, for and against, to illustrate her point vividly or lack there of.
By the way, who the hell uses VHS anymore? She actually used a vhs camcorder? Hello? That is so crappy. It is a terrible format. Beta was and is a better analog format. Better yet, why aren’t you using a digital format? What a maroon! Not only does she need counseling she needs to get with the digital times.
Great point. I totally agree.
How mentally ill can a person be? Was she this mentally ill before she came to Yale or did Yale do this to her?
No sane person could be this barbaric. I don’t think Josef Mengele would have dreamed up anything more abhorent in Auschwitz.
Silkyinfamous #38, Thank you. Sending my thoughts once I cool down.
O.K.,I’m back from the bathroom now. You’re right Gemini,better teaching stock would be a great help.But where do we find such people? It seems like only the wing nuts apply for those positions.
We are uneducated simpletons according to the libs…we couldn’t possibly know up from down..let alone what art is or should be
spo-con said:
They are out there, but the problem is….they want to teach…and because of that….they don’t get the job.
It’s really sad.
Her parents MUST be PROUD!
To further invoke my lack of sophistication to the libs, Art is a productive American with too little time on his hands..
She needs to be forced to re-read all her own statements on the subject, then smacked hard upside the head. Repeatedly.
This must be a hoax. Her project is more likely the compliation of the reactions this sick idea gets. If it’s not a hoax, she needs some serious help. Actually, if this idea is the way her mind works, she probably still needs help.
Words fail me. To even think about doing this in the name of art, speaks of a soul without a conscience. To actually do it and display it shows that this woman’s soul is lost, and those of whom would sponsor it, and regard it as art. this is premeditated murder, pure and simple.
This woman needs a straight jacket and a padded room. Beyond repulsive.
Hey Mom & Dad…..how’s your daughter doing at Yale? Learning anything?
I just sent an E.Mail to president Levin, for all the good thats going to do. I can just see the words ricocheting off his thick forehead.
This is what a feminist looks like.
I sent an e-mail to Mr. Levin, the Yale president, after I calmed down a little bit. But, like spo-con said, “…for all the good that’s going to do.”
She’s not ‘educated’, but she’s definitely an ‘idiot’. She’s only educated in the worship of self. She sees that people line up out the door to view that despicable ‘plasticized’ dead bodies exhibit that the other dimwit is making $$ on, so she’s jumping on the choo choo. There is nothing new under the sun.
I wonder if she got there by ‘affirmative action’? She surely is not qualified to be there…..or is she?
Wow, this young and already she’s secured herself a place in Hell along with the crackpot advisers who let her go through with this.
This, like the starving dog in Costa Rica, isn’t art, it’s a celebration of evil. This is what decades of moral relativism gets you.
OK sicko…lets have that debate. You want a relationship between art and the human body huh? Well….get a $%@#&ng tattoo!!
Here’s a good write-up on this from a pro-choice point of view.
My take: denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. I’m not at the point where I can think this is anything but a hoax designed to get the maximum amount of attention. I think this partially because I hope this.
Well next is Yale Alumni and the Big Donors. I’m going to find them and will be happy to splash their emails on here. I want them to know what their money is being spent on.
…and if it isn’t?
Garbage, pure and simple only meant to shock and attract attention, which it is doing. I guess trashing Christians just doesn’t elicite the response it used to so something more disgusting is needed. She will get her 15 minutes of fame followed by the long, dreary obscurity she so richly deserves.
kpo said:
I get it–she’ll print off all of our comments, write the better ones on 3×5 white mattboard in red ink. Frame each piece w/a red wooden frame. Put track lighting above the pieces & call it her senior project. ‘Conceptual art’. Ahem; I took that class too.
It sounds like she’s angling for a guest appearance on the Jerry Springer Show. That’s about as high a level of motivation as I can charitably assign to her.
Or to paraphrase the Roman writer Tacitus from a couple of millenia ago: “They create an intellectual and moral wasteland, and call it ‘art.’”
SteveinTX, that is not what a feminist looks like. That is what a person with a strong desire for attention looks like. To equate her with feminism is grapsing at straws.
Gemini, she was the valedictorian of her high school. Why bring up affirmative action?
There was a student in my high school of Cape Verdian descent. Which is to say dark-skinned. He was the valedictorian at our prep school and had extracurricular activities out the wazoo. He got into Harvard and ended up stealing thousands of dollars to fund a drug addiction.
If you saw that story (and that picture), would you hypothesize that he was in Harvard because of affirmative action? Because that is a completely unfair conclusion to draw.
Ok. I’m thread drifting. Back to why this project is so deplorable.
Higher education. Gotta love it.
Maybe I’m just a “typical,faith-clinging, gun-lovin’ white person”, but what about this is “art”. When I think of art, I think of paintings or scuptures or symphonies, not some videos of a douchebag giving herself abortions wrapped up in Saran wrap covered in blood and vaseline. But I guess I’m not smart enough to understand it, being a dumb redneck hick.
Is there any indication that anybody at Yale has had anything but negative comments to make about this student’s project? Maybe simply just a case of a disturbed young woman. I don’t know…just sayin’.
As I was reading this, my sister, who went to Yale as did I, sent me a link from a separate website, and we’re both disgusted, I assure you.
Actually she looks like those people in Berkeley that wander around aimlessly on Telegraph Ave. yelling at trees and park benches.
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not be violated but with His wrath? INDEED I TREMBLE FOR MY COUNTRY WHEN I REFLECT THAT GOD IS JUST AND THAT HIS JUSTICE CANNOT SLEEP FOREVER.”………Thomas Jefferson
The finest definition of art that I have ever heard is “The creation of something beautiful from nothing.”
What this woman is doing in not art. It is the repeated and meaningless destruction of the most beautiful art in the world.
Whatever happened to Monet, Van Gogh etc.?
Also, why are the “smartest among us” and the “best of the best” (as some would have you believe) usually the ones who are completely detached from reality?
And we tell our children that if they don’t get a college education they won’t be able to get a good job? Dropout junkies panhandling at stoplights contribute more to society than this “artist” ever will. Have Obama or Hillary announced whether they’ll appoint this demented woman as head of the NEA yet?
sunandsteel,
The world is their oyster. You can do whatever you want, be whoever you want, etc… Some people just take that to mean that there are no boundaries and decorum isn’t necessary in the approach of these goals.
So she got pregnant multiple times in order to abort her own children for an art project?
Can we take your sister’s e-mail as confirmation that this is not a hoax?
I don’t think we will see this”exhibit”up with the Dutch Masters any time soon, do you?
This confirms it, my daughter is going to Hillsdale College.
This is a sick world.
If anything, this should make rural Pennsylvanian’s grip their bibles and guns even tighter.
The photo I saw wasn’t of sufficient resolution to show facial hair. Not that we’d want to see it, but do you have a head shot of the Shvarts?
Texas Tiger
Unfortunately, it is not a hoax. I just went to the YDN website and it is shut down for maintenance. I also e-mailed to link to another college friend of mine to see if he’d heard about it.
Rusty’s link to the other site had a full write-up on it and from the first few pages of comments I read on there, they weren’t too happy with this “art” student either.
Her escapades seem to have pissed people across the political spectrum, as they should.
Do you think that famous Yale alum G. W. Bush is going to comment on this product of HIS alma mater?
30,
Thats true. To me it is just absurd that the “college experience” for a lot of people is either this type of nonsense or the “I’m gonna drink more than anyone ever” type of nonsense.