Probably The Next World-Famous Artist

April 18th, 2008 | researchmaterial

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.

Yale Daily News - For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse

(via Charlie Stross, thanks)

30 Responses to “Probably The Next World-Famous Artist”

  1. WOW. I would like to say something more, but I’m at a loss. Wow…wow.

  2. While I consider myself pro-choice, this utter disregard for viable human life is ridiculous. For what, for fucking ART? This is not art. Seriously, why didn’t she just go buy some slavechildren from Asia and use their intestines as papier mache? Bout the same end result. Never thought I’d agree with the lifers on anything, but holy fucking shit. Certain people need to stop doing acid.

  3. What in the holy fuck?

    I cannot imagine any sort of point that she’s actually trying to make.

  4. Folks, she put out a press release about this *in the middle of a Papal visit*.

    That’s all you need to know to understand what this is: the most inspired publicity-stunt debut in the art world since Damien Hirst unleashed himself with a display of freeze-dried aborted foetuses as earrings in the mid-1980s.

    I predict she’ll go far.

    Meanwhile, your word for today is “choriocarcinoma”.

  5. This will go down as the next urine floating crucifix for American right wingers. Bill O’Reilly is sitting in his office right now rubbing himself in anticipation of his upcoming righteous rage.

  6. While I completely disagree with the art itself, I think it’s a statement about choice itself.

    Yet this one isn’t as “tough” as it is in my experience.

    I’m curious to hear a woman’s reaction.

  7. Ridiculous. It strikes me more as self-abuse than “art”.

  8. As a female gotta say i personally think this is brilliant, can see why people are upset about it, but hey it’s her body.

  9. On behalf of the McCain campaign I’d just like to say, “It’s never too early for Christmas morning!”

    Thanks, crazy girl whose daddy didn’t pay enough attention to her, thanks a lot.

  10. This is art ??

    So Jack the Riper was Da Vinci and Charles Manson is Picasso.
    Breed just for killing, killing just for…exibicionism ?!?!?

    God is not dead as some says (he jus don’t want interfere) but art surely is.

  11. Why did she do this?

    Because she can. That’s all art needs.

  12. I had the same thought as Charlie did, up there. Putting this out in the middle of the Pope’s US visit is fantastic.

  13. She’ll have a hard time dreaming up a follow up exhibition. Where do you go from here- oil pastels?

  14. This is absolutely the perfect representation of NON art. To even use the word in conjunction with this sick little personal project is a disservice to every true artist. It is WHY people think conceptual art is a load of shit. It personifies that whole ‘a 3 year old could do it’ theory. Feel free to photograph ones vomit, mount slides with your snot and blood, scatter your used tampons across a canvas, etc. As long was you call it conceptual art your covered. Since she is NOT an artist in ANY sense of the word we should applaud her marketing. Interviews ahead of time, blog notes, mass media coverage.It’s everywhere. She did what every good promoter with no talent does.

    When a true artist like Matthew Barney has to compete with the perception of ‘art’ that people get from stupid college hi jinks like this it is sad. As someone who is in the art world, has a long term family gallery interest dating back to Winslow Homer and the like I am so insulted by childish crap like this garnering attention. By the way, her little scattered body part pieces with duct tape crap you posted…rginal statemnt at all.

  15. I’m sure Aliza’s mother is crying somewhere right now wondering why she didn’t follow through with her abortion.

  16. I’m not outraged about the abortion part of this (come on, a fetus at that stage has less brain power than a lobster) but I agree with that rant gabe posted about what bullshit it is to call this art.

    You wanna shoot dead quasi-babies out your vag? Feel free, but you shouldn’t be making money, getting interviews, and calling yourself talented for it.

  17. I’m calling hoax on this one. it just doesn’t smell right

  18. http://img515.imageshack.us/my.php?image=abuc7.jpg

    This picture seems relevant.

    And Owen, I can only imagine what it smells like.

  19. Jack The Ripper most certainly WAS an artist. He absolutely should have been arrested, tried and convicted simply because it is illegal to use womens’ (or mens’ for that matter) bodies as a canvas for that type of art. However his brief and limited ouvre has probably had more influence on art on this planet in the twentieth century than any other nineteenth century artist.

    Charles Manson WASN’T and ISN’T an artist. Just a wacko.

  20. “it just doesn’t smell right”

    Eewwww.

    I’m very disappointed that anyone took this seriously. The only credit due this chick is that she had the self-restraint to not make the announcement on April Fool’s Day.

  21. Three well-deserved cheap shots:

    1. The (catch-all crap art) defense is that by doing this she’s provoking debate (note all of us walking into her dumbass trap).
    2. I can waste tens of thousands more times’ wasted life into a tissue in the time it’s taken me to write this post (not my point originally, stolen from Hicks I think).
    3. I bet she can’t draw.

  22. I’m not much of an artist (writing is more my trade), but this feels less like “art” and more like “stupid human trick.”

  23. Successful troll is successful.

  24. Wow, Pro-Lifers are going to kill her. Hurr.

  25. […] Ellis has been all over this story and suggested from the very first that Shvarts is “probably the next world famous artist”.   He was quick to realize that “the press release itself is the art piece” and […]

  26. Just like with marylin manson, the people who hate him make him famous. So the more people freak out about her, the more attention she will get.

  27. “It personifies that whole ‘a 3 year old could do it’ theory.”

    Reconsider.

  28. http://pics.livejournal.com/kc_anathema/gallery/000847zw

    This made me think of the Shintaro Kago manga “Fetus Collection”.

  29. Hunter posted one picture, but the whole story relates.

    “Fetus Collection”

    http://pics.livejournal.com/kc_anathema/gallery/000847zw

    by Shintaro Kago.

  30. I agree with Jared by describing this as a “stupid human trick”. Yes, this was her choice and her body, but as several people have already mentioned, it doesn’t show any real talent except for getting attention. Which does seem to be the point.

    An interesting alternative question for everyone- would you consider it art if a man masturbated onto a canvas? No shapes or anything creative, just random splats lit with UV so you could see it.

Miss Piggy?s Teaches of Peaches

Coilhouse - 20 Nov 09

Every time an issue of the magazine goes to print, things somehow turn Highly Inappropriate here at Coilhouse. This is apparent to anyone who was there on Twitter during the hours of our final revision deadline last night. And it’s only going to get worse before Issue 04’s out. So to celebrate, a video of Miss Piggy singing “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches. It’s that kind of day.

[via Shannon]


Post tags: Madness, Music, Puppetry

claytoncubitt: Will Blanche, ?The Newly Constructed Towers of...

Brian Wood - 20 Nov 09



claytoncubitt:

Will Blanche, ?The Newly Constructed Towers of the World Trade Center Seen From the South Side on West Street, May, 1973? (via These Americans)

See also: Mitch Epstein, ?West Side Highway, New York City? [looking towards World Trade Center] 1977

Percy Jackson trailer

Kung Fu Monkey - 20 Nov 09

Seriously, if I were 12, this would have melted my brain. I love this trailer.

JOURNAL: How to Break and Open Source Insurgency

John Robb - 20 Nov 09

Short Answer:  divide it.

It's long been my contention that Iraq was stabilized at an acceptable level of controlled chaos due to a happy accident by al Qaeda (in an attempt to expand/lead the loose insurgency in a new direction).  What did they do?   They blew up the Golden Mosque in Samara in 2006.  This act of symbolic terrorism did indeed disrupt social networks as anticipated, however the consequences were ultimately disastrous for the Iraqi open source insurgency.  

Baghdad_Ethnic_2007_late_smThe reason for this is it broke the dynamics of the open source insurgency in ways the US and Iraqi government's COIN efforts could not.  First, it created a permanent split between Sunni and Shiite insurgent groups/militias.  Coopetition ended.  Second, it motivated large Shiite militias to start an ethnic cleansing of Sunni areas.  This put acute pressure on Sunni guerrilla groups who were too small (by design to avoid US counter-pressure) to defend themselves against large militias operating in the open.  The result was an opening, very close to the one I described in my 2005 NYTimes OpEd, that allowed the US to convert Sunni guerrilla groups into militias that were not loyal to the central government (in direct contradiction to its COIN manual).   

It's a nice example of the dynamics of many to many conflict, social network disruption, and the development open source counterinsurgency.

See this excellent description at the blog, "Musings on Iraq" for more detail on the ethnic cleansing operations.  It also includes this money quote: "the majority of the Sunni insurgency gave up and switched sides to align with the Americans rather than face annihilation at the hands of the Shiite militias, Al Qaeda in Iraq, or the United States."

NOTE:  it's pretty clear from the above that social network disruption (either through attacks on symbolic targets or blood and guts terrorism) is like playing horseshoes with live hand grenades.  It's ultimately a losing strategy for advancing an open source insurgency.  Social network disruption is very likely to break standing order 6:  don't fork the insurgency.

Twitter Updates for 2009-11-20

Girl Farts - 20 Nov 09

LINKS: 20 NOV 09

John Robb - 20 Nov 09

Some random items of interest:

  • Vigilante militias in Rio are displacing the drug gangs -- favelas under the control of militias has grown from 108 in 2005 to 400 in 2008 (out of 965).  Why?  They have a better (albeit parasitic) conflict/business model than the drug gangs since they act as a substitute for missing public goods/services normally supplied by the government.  First, they provide a minimal level of security and conflict adjudication.  Second, they make more money than the drug gangs by "taxing" everything from propane to cable TV to the gray market.  
  • US gray economy estimated at $1 Trillion (not including criminal, outside of the evasion of taxes and regulation, activities) and growing faster than the "legal" economy.  
  • Proposal and wiki for an open source fabrication lab.
  • Somali pirates are expanding operations into the Indian ocean.  The combination of positive feedback loops (maritime insurance + rapid payoffs by crisis negotiators) and legal ambiguity (the biggest fear of a western navy and governments is that they might arrest a pirate -- prompting a massive/expensive legal tussle with few certain penalties and the forced extension of a visa to the former pirate once he is released from his short incarceration).  Is a franchise model for other locales possible?
  • Yes-we-can-secede
  • A business group in Ciudad Juarez asks for UN peacekeepers.  Hilarious. "Ciudad Juarez, population 1.5 million, has an average of seven homicides a day, with the total at 1,986 for this year through mid-October."
  • Seccession.net.  County based secession effort.  

Untitled Post

blissblog - 20 Nov 09

Yume no Byouin Project

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Yume no Byouin Project

Beautiful (and simple) site design featuring the illustrative work of Yorifuji Bunpei. Via Paul Baron.

Kodai

Jean Snow - 20 Nov 09

Kodai

Coming up at the Kakitsubata gallery in Nakameguro is the show “Kodai,” running from November 25 until December 6.

Kodai

Kap Bambino

jwz - 20 Nov 09