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megwritesWARNING: The material below discusses a piece of "art" (term used loosely) who's subject and display is extremely graphic (the topic is abortion). It will probably disturb you. Decide very carefully if you want to go on reading.
For this, I get to trot out a favorite word of mine. Skullduggery. It means deception or false dealing.
This Yale student's abortion as art has gotten pasted around various f-lists of mine. I will warn you now that even the descriptions of it are grotesque, disturbing, and will trigger probably even the heartiest of you.
(I sound like one of those barkers at a carnival, daring you to come into a Ten-In-One to see the Three Legged Boy or something, don't I?)
And to ease your very visceral disgust, yes, it is a complete and utter fake. Although the use of the term "creative fiction" offends me as a writer.
I do creative fiction. This girl? Just FAILS.
I think that the only remotely intelligent thing about this piece is how it picked the perfect red herring. What better than the issue of abortion to distract people from the fact that your art is, as a piece of art, a complete failure?
For one, as performance art it failed. Yale telling people it was a fake ruins the element of belief she needed. Which is like having part of your statue chiseled off. Actually, it's like having your statue bulldozed over.
Luckily for us, it was hideous and rather stupid to begin with. It wasn't like the Pieta got crushed or anything. As far as I'm concerned, this entire thing deserves to leave skid marks on the bowl.
Shvarts went about this in a way that can only be described as Epic Fail. She didn't just climb aboard the failboat, she is now captaining it and navigating us through the murky waters of her talentless hackery.
I'd use more intelligent terms, but Shvarts obviously doesn't want us using our brains. Because anyone who did wouldn't need Yale to announce that this is a fake. Any woman who's gone through pregnancy, abortion, or miscarriage can tell you what a badly told lie this entire thing is. Or anyone who knows any of the basic facts of reproduction and how, it's not as simple as inserting Tab A into Slot B, set on 98.6 degrees for nine months and wait 'til the timer dings. (I'm not sure what preheating the oven would mean in this metaphor and I don't think I want to, BTW).
It's actually a very complex and uncertain process.
So there's another mark against Shvarts. She, being at Yale, couldn't even borrow a medical student for five minutes so they could fact check her project.
As a political statement, it was ham-handed and stupid. Trust me, getting people to discuss abortion and think about it is easy. Just ask. Seriously, you could've gotten a LOLcat looking very seriously at an audience with the caption "your feelings on abortion, tell me thems" and gotten the same result. With less harm done and less people getting nauseous.
But there's good news in all this.
Firstly, there's the fact that in about ten minutes, the lampooning of Shvarts is going to start and will eventually end with her trudging off into obscurity as just another Weird Thing that we all got interested in for a week and then never talked about again. She is now the William Hung of art, I think. Except William Hung at least had a positive message of "believe in yourself, even if everyone thinks you suck!". Shvarts has no upside.
Secondly, the debate I've seen (pro-life and pro-choice) alike seem to agree that this is disgusting, absurd, and not to be made part of the debate.
Thirdly, Shvarts is going to karmically get hers back for this. I don't think that anyone is ever going to take her seriously as an artist. Which is not to say that some gallery owner in NYC (I love this city because it proves that Rich White People will call anything art and pay oodles for it) won't take her on. It just means that when we tally up the art that mattered in our age? Shvarts won't be on the list. She'll be among the little historical obscurities that make future historians wonder what the hell was in our water. Nothing more.
Not to mention the personal affect this will have on her. Can you imagine any future partners/children she might have?
Why yes, it does make me cackle.
So, the best thing I think we can do is get this out of our systems. Mock Shvarts for her attention grabbing stunt and it's failure, express our disgust, and move on with our lives.
As for the abortion debate, the best thing we can do for it is try our best to discuss it, as a society, with intelligence, respect, compassion, and reason. None of which Shvarts' little spectacle has.
For this, I get to trot out a favorite word of mine. Skullduggery. It means deception or false dealing.
This Yale student's abortion as art has gotten pasted around various f-lists of mine. I will warn you now that even the descriptions of it are grotesque, disturbing, and will trigger probably even the heartiest of you.
(I sound like one of those barkers at a carnival, daring you to come into a Ten-In-One to see the Three Legged Boy or something, don't I?)
And to ease your very visceral disgust, yes, it is a complete and utter fake. Although the use of the term "creative fiction" offends me as a writer.
I do creative fiction. This girl? Just FAILS.
I think that the only remotely intelligent thing about this piece is how it picked the perfect red herring. What better than the issue of abortion to distract people from the fact that your art is, as a piece of art, a complete failure?
For one, as performance art it failed. Yale telling people it was a fake ruins the element of belief she needed. Which is like having part of your statue chiseled off. Actually, it's like having your statue bulldozed over.
Luckily for us, it was hideous and rather stupid to begin with. It wasn't like the Pieta got crushed or anything. As far as I'm concerned, this entire thing deserves to leave skid marks on the bowl.
Shvarts went about this in a way that can only be described as Epic Fail. She didn't just climb aboard the failboat, she is now captaining it and navigating us through the murky waters of her talentless hackery.
I'd use more intelligent terms, but Shvarts obviously doesn't want us using our brains. Because anyone who did wouldn't need Yale to announce that this is a fake. Any woman who's gone through pregnancy, abortion, or miscarriage can tell you what a badly told lie this entire thing is. Or anyone who knows any of the basic facts of reproduction and how, it's not as simple as inserting Tab A into Slot B, set on 98.6 degrees for nine months and wait 'til the timer dings. (I'm not sure what preheating the oven would mean in this metaphor and I don't think I want to, BTW).
It's actually a very complex and uncertain process.
So there's another mark against Shvarts. She, being at Yale, couldn't even borrow a medical student for five minutes so they could fact check her project.
As a political statement, it was ham-handed and stupid. Trust me, getting people to discuss abortion and think about it is easy. Just ask. Seriously, you could've gotten a LOLcat looking very seriously at an audience with the caption "your feelings on abortion, tell me thems" and gotten the same result. With less harm done and less people getting nauseous.
But there's good news in all this.
Firstly, there's the fact that in about ten minutes, the lampooning of Shvarts is going to start and will eventually end with her trudging off into obscurity as just another Weird Thing that we all got interested in for a week and then never talked about again. She is now the William Hung of art, I think. Except William Hung at least had a positive message of "believe in yourself, even if everyone thinks you suck!". Shvarts has no upside.
Secondly, the debate I've seen (pro-life and pro-choice) alike seem to agree that this is disgusting, absurd, and not to be made part of the debate.
Thirdly, Shvarts is going to karmically get hers back for this. I don't think that anyone is ever going to take her seriously as an artist. Which is not to say that some gallery owner in NYC (I love this city because it proves that Rich White People will call anything art and pay oodles for it) won't take her on. It just means that when we tally up the art that mattered in our age? Shvarts won't be on the list. She'll be among the little historical obscurities that make future historians wonder what the hell was in our water. Nothing more.
Not to mention the personal affect this will have on her. Can you imagine any future partners/children she might have?
Why yes, it does make me cackle.
So, the best thing I think we can do is get this out of our systems. Mock Shvarts for her attention grabbing stunt and it's failure, express our disgust, and move on with our lives.
As for the abortion debate, the best thing we can do for it is try our best to discuss it, as a society, with intelligence, respect, compassion, and reason. None of which Shvarts' little spectacle has.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-18 03:38 pm (UTC)I read it and was squicked, but the overriding emotion, probably because I'd already read the entirety of your post and knew going in that it was a fake, was, "What an IDIOT."
And a perfect example of over privileged, over educated, over intellectualized, overblown sense of own self-importance, and utterly lacking in common sense.
Case in point:
“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.”
WHAT ambiguity? Dude, you can find out more than you ever wanted to know about the function of the woman's body just by checking out Gray's Anatomy and as far as the form goes, she'd be served well to check out this book. (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2004323366_this03.html)
Oy.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-18 04:02 pm (UTC)They're kind of coming out the woodwork in DROVES aren't they? I think it's spring or something. People get a dose of sunshine and suddenly all sorts of wacky hijinks are breaking out.
Only, not the fun kind of wacky hijinks that end on a tropical island with me, a brave monkey sidekick, and Gerard Butler serving me pina coladas and rubbing my feet. (*drools*). Sorry, I had to sort of take a break from the ICK factor in all this to go to my Happy Place.
And a perfect example of over privileged, over educated, over intellectualized, overblown sense of own self-importance, and utterly lacking in common sense.
Amen. The stupid in this case is kind of scorching my retinas. This is to say nothing of the fact that her entire project relies on the audience being told a lie. So, your art, meant to clear up "an ambiguity" is actually based on a lie? So you want to get at the truth by LYING?
God I need to back to my Happy Place now. Gerard, get me a pina colada and make it snappy! I could use some good rum after this. *groans*.
I read it and was squicked, but the overriding emotion, probably because I'd already read the entirety of your post and knew going in that it was a fake, was, "What an IDIOT."
That's what I was going for. I felt it important to warn people upfront about the fakery involved, because a lot of women who responded when this first came out were really disgusted and some said they got physically sick thinking about the literal reality of it. So, I didn't want anyone getting that sick over it.
WHAT ambiguity? Dude, you can find out more than you ever wanted to know about the function of the woman's body just by checking out Gray's Anatomy
For a split second, I thought you meant the show and not the textbook and I was thinking, "Well, they do get naked a lot on that show. I guess that's sort of an anatomy lesson."
You're right, there is no ambiguity. There's ambiguity in people's FEELINGS about women's bodies and how they should be portrayed and etc, etc, etc. And exploring that might be an intelligent, worthwhile endevour, especially in the hands of a capable artist.
This is just skullduggery (yes, I love that word).
no subject
Date: 2008-04-20 11:54 pm (UTC)You know, the negative side of reproduction could be a good subject, but this is such fail.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-21 01:04 pm (UTC)I know! She took a topic that in fact DOES merit serious artistic inquiry and turned it into an epic display of fail heretofore unknown to modern science. Although, I feel satisfied that a lot of the hubbub and uproar died down when word caught on that it was a fake.
Shvarts is trying to stick with her story (I find that to be extremely funny) that they were "abortions", BTW.
This woman just does not understand her own reproductive system, does she? Which is sad because she's putting it on display and I want to spray paint the words UR DOIN IT WRONG all over her exhibition.
Someone should do that. It would be graffiti for justice.