Student Aliza Shvarts’ Yale Project Uses Abortion For Arts’ Sake
TO the pages of the Yale Daily News where art student Aliza Shvarts is using abortion as a medium for art and political discourse, it says here.
Shvarts’ art project is 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.
Says she: “I hope it inspires some sort of discourse. 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.”
Of course it isn’t. Anorak’s own installation Vomit In Sock (“A damning indictment of consumerism” – T. Emin; “If only I’d thought of it first , f*** it!” – D. Hirst) triggered no little controversy. But what is modern art without that?
“I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity,” says Shvarts. “I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.”
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.
Says she: “It was a private and personal endeavor, but also a transparent one for the most part. This isn’t something I’ve been hiding.”
As if…
Posted: 17th, April 2008 | In: Reviews Comments (13) | TrackBack | Permalink
