April 17, 2008

Aliza Shvarts: Abortion Goo Girl Rants Against the "Patriarchal Heteronormative"

[Note 1: Yale now claims this was all a hoax. See below.]

[Note 2: Yale Advisor removes video from YouTube. See below.]

[Note 3: Then again, perhaps, not so much of a hoax after all:
Yale Daily News - Shvarts, Yale clash over project

"In an interview later Thursday afternoon, Shvarts defended her work and called the University's statement "ultimately inaccurate." She reiterated that she engaged in the nine-month process she publicized on Wednesday in a press release that was first reported in the News: repeatedly using a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself, then taking abortifacient herbs at the end of her menstrual cycle to induce bleeding. Thursday evening, in a tour of her art studio, she shared with the News video footage she claimed depicted her attempts at self-induced miscarriages."

[YouTube video removed April 18,2008]

VIDEO UPDATE: Like cockroaches running for the den when the lights go on: Shvarts' advisor Pia Lindman chickens out by removing the You Tube video above originally at Lindman's Soapbox Event. Ah, the courage of our "artists!

Teacher's Pet, Aliza Shvarts, who saved her abortions for art, ( Yale Daily News - For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse) rants on about speech at her teacher's performance Soapbox Event. Sample:

"And you know we are conditioned that way, and why are we conditioned that way, and you know... Because we have this huge fucking institution ... it's these patriarchal heteronormative trappings of a right to speak.... "

Rousing applause for this person. I'm sure her exhibition of her abortions will also be applauded. You can't help wondering what her parents -- who raised her and who no doubt paid for her "education" are thinking.

After all, she went in looking like this:

aliziashvarts.jpg
From left, seniors Matt Drooyan and Mia Tramz will be honored with
the Head of School award and President's Award, respectively, and
seniors Aliza Shvarts, valedictorian, and Sean Gleason, salutatorian,
will speak at Commencement on June 12.
-- Buckley School, 2004

And came out looking like this:
Aliza%2B7Coalition%2Blores.jpg
NYC, 2008

Endowed with the ability to be as, ah, articulate as you see above. Educated as well to believe that this project qualifies as "art:"

"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.... The project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery.... 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."

Well, if "art" means thinking up ever-increasingly degraded ways of getting attention, this person has certainly created "art."

The ability to express my loathing of this person and this mindset and the institutions that shaped her is currently beyond me, but Godwin makes a start:

It would never occur to the psychologist in me to call this "art." Rather, I would take this as prima facie evidence of a severe mental disorder -- perhaps a borderline personality with psychopathic and psychotic features -- psychopathic because of the evident lack of a rudimentary conscience, psychotic because of the primitive rage directed at the content of her own womb (which is a symbol of her hostile and dismembered psyche). - One Cosmos: Only Humanity Was Harmed in the Making of This Exhibit
You know, there really is no bottom.

Students at Yale are already beginning to ask the more serious questons @ Yale Daily News - For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse - Comments

what kind of advisor approves this? it is hands down the most egregious negligence of responsibility that i have ever heard of. all political implications aside (and, since i doubt this pia character could be in ignorance of them, i can only assume she is as self-indulgent and attention-hungry as her advisee), YOU PUT YOUR STUDENT'S HEALTH AT RISK. i hope this woman is fired, not only for having a hand in this travesty, but for the damage she has done to yale's reputation as an institution of intellectual (not to mention moral) integrity.

The "advisor" in question is the deeply untalented and delusional "performance artist" Pia Lindman. Today Ms. Lindman is, wisely, unavailable for comment. Nevertheless, her close and worshipful attachment to her "student" Aliza is on display at Soapbox Event where Shvarts is showcased.

Lindman's previous "art" also focuses on self mutilation such as this item from Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art:

fascia.jpg
Still from "Fascia" video, part 2, one of the 'Nine Faces": "Squashed Face." Facial expression held fixed for one hour with the help of the steel contraption, while video records the entire duration.

It would seem that Lindman has a fascination for putting women into strange situations. All for art, of course. Seems to me though that the parents paying for their kid's education would be interested in seeing Lindman's portfolio. Just so they could understand what their kids were getting into.

Most people seem to have gotten the notion that it is wrong for a student and a teacher to have a straightforward sexual relationship, but what about the case when a teacher is strapping students into S&M equipment for "art?"

Lindman's PDF Resume Here



Update: Bonus feature... some Shvarts "Art"

shvartsart.jpg

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

Ah, the beauty! It's all starting to come together in one lumped mass, isn't it?

UPDATE 2: Even more intimate moments revealed in this touching memoir by Schvarts on her getting her first period and sharing the news with her mother: My1stPeriod

After a trip to the girls' bathroom and a harrowing experience with the pad dispenser, I got on the school bus to go home, excited to tell my mother the news. I expected a lot from that talk. I expected secrets to be revealed, meanings to be exposed, and to emerge somehow closer to my mother and her adult world. I remember beaming as she sat me down on her bed with a package of pads and launched into a similar version of the talk she had given my friend. But about five or ten minutes into it, her then-boyfriend got home from work and walked into the bedroom. She looked at me, handed me the package, and nothing more was said. My first period remained an event shared only by the Mings and me.
- Aliza Shvarts, Los Angeles, CA
Aliza is an Art major at Yale
"Her then-boyfriend got home from work..." Sort gives the root of the dysfunction away right there, doesn't it?

UPDATE 3: And the heat goes on. Late today, Yale revealed the project was a "hoax."

Yale University :: Office of Public Affairs

New Haven, Conn. April 17, 2008

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.

"... serious mental and physical health concerns." Indeed.

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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

The irony of her soapbox statement would be astounding, if my ability to be astounded had not already been tapped out by this imbecile's senior project. Her view of the world is so utterly inverted, it's breathtaking.

I weep for her parents, and for her unborn children.

Yale: abortions on display, Taliban students welcome, but US Armed Forces get a boot in the ass. Why, exactly, is this considered a good education?

Posted by: Julie at April 17, 2008 12:26 PM

Consider how outrageous you find this repugnant act to be, and then multiply this act by several hundred thousand already-born innocent people and you've got BushCo in a nutshell.

Posted by: Bill at April 17, 2008 12:39 PM

The woman has mental issues. My only question is WHICH Buckley School, the one in Los Angeles or the one in Manhattan? From her attendance at Yale I'd think the latter, but one never knows. Those are the first two Buckley School's I found on Google, but there may be more. ;)

Posted by: Andy at April 17, 2008 12:42 PM

Bill's wit runs a close second to his moral acuity. Which runs a close second to that of Miss Shvarts.

JWM

Posted by: jwm at April 17, 2008 12:48 PM

Fruitloop. Oh, and, by the way-- after all that fancy education, you'd think she'd be able to deliver a discourse without constantly repeating phrases like "y'know," "kind of," and "sort of."

Posted by: David at April 17, 2008 1:25 PM

This funniest part, to me, is that she is clearly trying to project an image of intelligence and sophistication, but she doesn't say much of anything that makes sense. It was almost like she was high as hell.

Posted by: DaveS at April 17, 2008 1:41 PM

She seems to have mastered the art of the run-on sentence. That and speaking for extended lengths without really saying anything. It was as if she were high.

Posted by: Milwaukee Mike at April 17, 2008 2:10 PM

I wonder what kind of "art" project Lindman submitted for her master's at MIT. That school has something to answer for as well.

Posted by: Connecticut Yankee at April 17, 2008 2:30 PM

So which is sicker, if she really did it, or if she made it up. Either way Yale is a looser. Why do we give them a tax exemption?

Posted by: Fat Man at April 17, 2008 2:48 PM

I should add that there is a reasonable argument the whole thing is a hoax: Link

Posted by: Fat Man at April 17, 2008 2:51 PM

Definitely the one in LA...

http://www.buckleyla.org/data/files/News/StudentVoice/Issue_7_part_I.pdf

Posted by: Jake at April 17, 2008 3:07 PM

This falls into the category of things I'd rather not know while at the same time it is absolutely imperative that I DO know. Reading about it here, or on Godwin's blog, relieves some of the pain. This is such an egregious assault on the human spirit. I am amazed at your talent as you seem always to come out of these encounters with a stronger more functional conscience than when you went in. Your obvious spiritual growth is an inspiration to all those you touch and the human condition is balanced somewhat towards the good in spite of the appalling evil in our midst on which you deign to report.

Posted by: John Hinds at April 17, 2008 3:10 PM

Who the hell are the Mings?

Posted by: paul a'barge at April 17, 2008 3:22 PM

This is why they used to only train the very best and experienced sailors for navigation. Any nut job can see the stars, not so many can find guidance there. Apparently this female can find her way only well enough to find the rocks in her way.

Still she serves as an example for humanity. Darwinism is her fate socially, but in the rarified atmosphere of academentia she is a goddess. Some value system there, huh?

Posted by: Moody Deep Thinker at April 17, 2008 3:30 PM

Voluntary, repeated, filmed, preserved, exhibited internal body fluids containing intentionally created and destroyed human life. Wow.
Initially I thought this was an age inappropriate equivalent of the child spreading feces on the wall.
But the Spectacle aspect of it, the obsessively deluded narcissism that treats even excreta as art, and the casual manipulation of life and death remind me of somebody else: NERO
This is what western secularism has wrought, instead of Huey Long's "Everyman a king", it's "everyone a NERO"

Posted by: Ricardo Luis Rodriguez MD at April 17, 2008 3:41 PM

Man, how low will people go to be somebody without really having the ability to say anything or having the ability to do anything constructive for our society? I cannot believe this to be true but if it is, she will have to answer for this someday in a big way. She is completely disgusting but at least she isn't breeding successfully thus far.

Posted by: Affordable Insurance at April 17, 2008 3:45 PM

So Shvarts rails against "this huge fucking institution ... it's these patriarchal heteronormative trappings of a right to speak.... " but then at the 4:20 mark the moderator yells "TIME" and she stops speaking and hops down. Then the moderator asks "Is there anyone who wishes to speak? Who has not signed up to speak?"

So they're enforcing the same hegemonic rules they're bloviating about. Your free speech is limited to 3 minutes, and you have to sign up to speak? Really?

Posted by: cybersherpa at April 17, 2008 3:46 PM

Never speak of the Mings!!!

Posted by: nino at April 17, 2008 3:52 PM

What a blowhard.

Posted by: Gbear at April 17, 2008 3:57 PM

I bet her mother is so proud.

Posted by: Hawkman at April 17, 2008 4:01 PM

I bet her mother is so proud.

Posted by: Hawkman at April 17, 2008 4:01 PM

"I wonder what kind of 'art' project Lindman submitted for her master's at MIT. That school has something to answer for as well."

Say what you want about Yale, you have to give the M.I.T. techies credit!

Serendipitous or not, from the looks of "Facia" Ms. Lindman perfected the automated Zit-Popper.

Get it? (Bluto Blutarsky = COLLEGE)

Posted by: edh at April 17, 2008 4:06 PM

Clearly spectacle and manic raving have actually replaced any semblance of actual art with lasting value. She paid how much in tuition to be allowed to think this is what it is all about?

So what's her follow-up piece to this? One shudders to think...

Posted by: pseudotsuga at April 17, 2008 4:06 PM

Aliza Shvarts: The best evidence yet why women should also eligible for Selective Service.

Something tells me Aliza is probably externalizing her long-standing hatred of Mia Tramz, the young lady immediately to Aliza's right in the Buckley School photo. Judging from her looks, I'll bet Mia never had to worry about getting asked for a date.

Posted by: MarkJ at April 17, 2008 4:08 PM

Aliza Shvarts: The best evidence yet why women should also be eligible for Selective Service.

Something tells me Aliza is probably externalizing her long-standing hatred of Mia Tramz, the young lady immediately to Aliza's right in the Buckley School photo. Judging from her looks, I'll bet Mia never had to worry about getting asked for a date.

Posted by: MarkJ at April 17, 2008 4:09 PM

Mia Tramz, for those wondering, is an actress who appeared in "The Parent Trap" and "Spiderman III." A somewhat more illustrious career to date.

Posted by: Rick Ellensburg at April 17, 2008 4:14 PM

I may be correct about Shvarts v. Tramz: Seems that Mia went to Columbia and is now pursuing an acting career in LA. Judging from this pic, she may have some success:

http://www.unknowntheater.com/publicsite/images/headshots/wallis_herst.jpg

Posted by: MarkJ at April 17, 2008 4:14 PM

Honestly, after listening to her incoherent rant in a somewhat childish lisp, one has to wonder whether Aliza's "art" actually has its genesis in a subconscious anger that can be traced to the likelihood she was taunted with the name "She-Farts" in grade school.

And I'm not kidding.

Posted by: edh at April 17, 2008 4:21 PM

Are you sure she's not attending UC Santa Cruz? Because that's how we were taught to talk there too.

Posted by: DirtCrashr at April 17, 2008 4:24 PM

Did anyone mirror the video? It looks like it was removed.

Posted by: Anonymous at April 17, 2008 4:30 PM

"Consider how outrageous you find this repugnant act to be, and then multiply this act by several hundred thousand already-born innocent people and you've got BushCo in a nutshell.


Posted by: Bill at April 17, 2008 12:39 PM"

BWAAAAH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Posted by: JB at April 17, 2008 5:39 PM

But is it shvart?

Posted by: Dan Collins at April 17, 2008 5:42 PM

Whether this particular instance was hoax or reality, objectifying abortion and utter disregard for the humanity of people before birth are simply two more waypoints on the radical feminist slide to hell.

The lone consoling fact may be that at least this one ugly, puerile, man-and-mankind hating "womyn" probably will never reproduce.

Posted by: askmom at April 17, 2008 6:04 PM

However your diagnosis holds up with the hoax now revealed, you and commenters who went so far as to define her by her appearance have demonstrated a bias that has nothing to do with her concept, real or fictional.

You know, there's a lot of people whose appearance doesn't meet my definition of attractive, but I certainly recognize that I cannot be an arbiter of character on the basis of something so superficial. Nor do I believe my tastes are superior to those of the person in question, nor of anyone else.

Ultimately, that undermines your other points. It's your call, but I think you might want to reconsider doing that the next time you intend to offer an ethical critique.

Posted by: Kevin Hayden at April 17, 2008 6:14 PM

Kevin's quite right. It's utterly contemptible to criticise Ms. Shvartz' based solely on her looks.

Fact is, even if she wasn't as ugly as sin, she'd still be an ignorant, disgusting excuse for a human being.

Posted by: Bod at April 17, 2008 6:26 PM

"Goo Girl Rants Against the "Patriarchal Heteronormative"

As well should we all!

Posted by: Irish Cicero at April 17, 2008 6:40 PM

Not so much how she looks, Kevin, as how she chooses to present herself. It calls into question the seriousness of her beliefs -- if she were serious, she'd be interested in persuading, rather than repulsing -- and her intelligence.

Posted by: Rob Crawford at April 17, 2008 6:49 PM

Ya know, Kevin, it's probably way beyond your ability to discern, but most likely Gerard and many of his commenters are discussing this woman's persona as an indicator of her mental and intellectual state.

The question is not whether she's "hot or not." The question is, does she look and act sane and reality based?

I personally called her ugly and I'll stand by it, not in the unfair way of belittling her genetic endowments, but in the same cultural way in which any person who lies, manipulates and hurls defiance at innocents can be called ugly.

To put it in simple terms: ugly is what ugly does. Does this clear it up for you?

Society once had a very useful term - "presentable." It was a polite way of saying that regardless their inborn attractiveness, someone was neat, clean, modest and appropriately dressed, groomed and behaved. This woman and her advisor fail ANY reasonable standard for "presentable" - just as this supposed project was not "art."

Maybe you are unwilling to discriminate between good taste, poor taste and disturbing, offensive taste, Kevin, but most of us do think it matters. We don't equate a love for Beethoven's Ninth with a preference for "Piss Christ" and we think less of you because apparently you just can't see any objective difference.

In the minds of most decent and normal people, the "concept" of making art from abortions is sick and morally wrong, this student's advisor is wasting the university's time and money, and your defense of the whole mess is incomprehensible. Unless perhaps you feel your status as a clueless liberoid is somehow at stake.

Trust me, no one is going to make a mistake about that.

Posted by: askmom at April 17, 2008 7:16 PM

I am totally tied in knots. I called hoax hours ago, and I should be patting myself on the back. But, I have no real reason to believe Yale. Their only incentive is to deny and lie.

I am back to does it make any difference if she was hoaxing or telling the truth? Cuold she tell the difference? Can we? In either event she is a jackass, her "Professors" showed no judgment, and Yale and its "Art" department are frauds.

My bottom line is the same -- repeal their tax exemption.

Posted by: Fat Man at April 17, 2008 7:42 PM

Even though the video is gone from Soapbox Events, there's this:

In this place,
newspaperman John Peter Zenger was
tried for seditious libel against the Royal
Governor; with his 1735 acquittal winning
a major victory for the free press in America;
George Washington delivered his inaugural
presidential speech from the balcony in
1790; and Yayoi Kusama held her Naked
Event on the steps in 1969.

One of these things is not like the others.

Posted by: rickl at April 17, 2008 7:46 PM

gvl:::

wouldn't you just luv 2 c a version of that paris hilton tv show - a simple life - with a postmodern "intellectual" like this shvarts thing starring in it instead of the sleazy airhead glamour queen?


Posted by: reliapundit at April 17, 2008 8:57 PM

Question: If this is all a hoax, what the hell is her art project?

Posted by: steve at April 18, 2008 12:44 AM

Not it would seem exactly a hoax after all:

Yale Daily News - Shvarts, Yale clash over project

"In an interview later Thursday afternoon, Shvarts defended her work and called the University’s statement “ultimately inaccurate.” She reiterated that she engaged in the nine-month process she publicized on Wednesday in a press release that was first reported in the News: repeatedly using a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself, then taking abortifacient herbs at the end of her menstrual cycle to induce bleeding. Thursday evening, in a tour of her art studio, she shared with the News video footage she claimed depicted her attempts at self-induced miscarriages."

Posted by: vanderleun at April 18, 2008 7:40 AM

I think Shvarts art (nice one Dan Collins) is a reflection of society. Form follow function, or visa-versa. Does art reflect life, or the opposite? If shvarts suffers mental illness, then our society is mentally ill. Otherwise explain 45 million abortions. Shvarts art is art. Through Aliza Shvarts we are all appalled at ourselves. Licentiousness breeds new forms of licentiousness.

Posted by: Phlebosheth at April 18, 2008 9:19 AM

Without the knowledge of Art History and Performance Art, you are not going to understand this piece, just as you wouldn't understand a paper on quantum physics if you had no relevant training. It is her body and she can do what she wants with it. I think it is a brilliant project, and helps dissolve the idea that female bodies are trapped into reproductive functions, and shows we can naturally control the direction of our lives faced with decisions on pregnancy. Kudos Aliza! Also, why is the president of NARAL a man? It's not surprising that a man is head of the pro-"life" faction of CT, as people like that are usually so steeped in hypocrisy it's disgusting. I think my last two comments are responding to another article I read about this where I did not have the option to post.

Posted by: Kristin t at April 18, 2008 9:22 AM

I have more reflections on this issue today at:


On Soul, Shvarts "Art" and Wrapping Crap in Plastic @ AMERICAN DIGEST

Posted by: vanderleun at April 18, 2008 10:14 AM

The only reason anyone is still upset or gives two gumdrops about this is because they originally thought the project was real (easily disputable by anyone who knows anything about the female body). But now that they know it isn't real, folks still have to act upset by it and ridicule this girl, because if they don't, they have to admit they were ignorant enough to fall for it. I think the lesson learned here is exactly this girl's objective.

Posted by: jdavis at April 18, 2008 10:35 AM

You are more deeply wrong than you can ever know. Even in bogus art it is the thought that counts.

I'd refer you again to

On Soul, Shvarts "Art" and Wrapping Crap in Plastic @ AMERICAN DIGEST

but I don't think it would do you any good.

Posted by: vanderleun at April 18, 2008 10:40 AM

I agree that this is a brilliant project and achieved exactly what it set out to do. I love how people get bent out of shape over art that rubs them the wrong way. People rip an artist to shreds without even researching the project, or the artist's stated objective. Then it becomes a matter of "this artist is a terrible person." Maybe you just didn't understand it.

I think artists like Aliza are crucial because they give us a reason to TALK about art, they challenge our views (it should not always be a safe, easy undertaking anyway), and they help us become better communicators.

Posted by: Sally at April 18, 2008 11:12 AM

Alas, Sally, this is a depraved project and the end result is to have people whose minds, like yours, have been colonized start to nod like the drinking bird over the glass with the expected and approved reaction.

This didn't have the faintest connection to "art" and a deep connection to disease.

Shvarts is no more an "artist" than a person standing in the bushes and jumping out to expose themselves.

In case you haven't noticed the level of TALK about art far exceeds the actual level of art our so-called "artists" can actually produce.

As for "helping us to become better communicators" I have no idea why that should be a goal or a process. In fact it is the inane sort of eructation that passes for thoughts in this blighted age.

I understood the "artist's" intent and I understood the "artist." There's no secret to the rotted souls of people like Shvarts, as you would have seen had you read the above.

They are legion and they are tedious when not actually diseased. There's nothing new about them. They've been running since the age of Alfred Jarry and Ubu Roi. They've always been sick and the passage of time has only made them sicker.

Posted by: vanderleun at April 18, 2008 11:26 AM

Thank the Lord we had Kristin T and Sally here to tell us that we're all just too stupid and ignorant to apprciate the obvious 'brilliance' of this art.

Now my knuckles don't drag on the floor when I walk and I'm suddenly inspired to write a haiku about my first bowel movement as a child and how it relates to gender modes in a world dominated by the patriarchy.


Thanks Sally and Kristin! Aliza's project has certainly changed the world and will continue to inspire people for generations to come. I'd be willing to bet that if all the neolithic apes posting here had any appreciation for 'art history' and 'performance art' they would be clamoring for this to be mentioned along side Michelangelo's paintings and Mozart's music.

Kudos Aliza! Let's all hope she managed to sterilize herself with this asinine project.

Posted by: Tigger at April 18, 2008 11:46 AM

Kristin T., spare us the nonsense about men's hypocrisy in opposing abortion. There are more women than men in the US who favour a complete ban on abortion, although the difference is small and probably within the margin of error (I'm not very knowledgeable about statistics so perhaps someone can correct me). At any rate, the figures give the lie to the commonplace assumption that opposition to abortion is mainly a male tendency. What's more, 21% of those who support a complete ban are also Democrats, so none of that "anti-abortionists don't care about babies after they're born" stuff, either - that is, if you assume that support for social spending is a mark of "caring".

Here are the numbers, found in Wikipedia, from a January 2003 CBS News/New York Times opinion poll:

Women:
Generally available: 37%
Available but with tighter restrictions: 37%
Not permitted: 24%

Men
Generally available: 40%
Available but with tighter restrictions: 40%
Not permitted: 20%

Posted by: alias clio at April 18, 2008 12:02 PM

I don't know what is more disgusting - the young artist who makes a pig of herself - or the elitist academics who portray them as courageous heros who bravely engage in self-expression.

They hate the military and they hate police like me, so they need to redefine courage. Heroism is not about self-sacrifice to the lefties - it's about attention seeking.

Posted by: J. O'Toole at April 18, 2008 12:41 PM

The tipping point is coming - finally. People are beginning to realize just how "out of whack" colleges are with reality.

My partner was recently back in college getting his degree. The havoc a gay, black conservative can wreak on a diversity class is truly hysterical. These people (see stupid comments, above) have no idea how insane their inculcated ideas seem to those of us who live in the real world.

Hopefully, all the '60s and '70s era professors will die off before life extension therapies are developed.

Posted by: mrsizer at April 18, 2008 9:20 PM

Vanderleun,

You are completely correct to point out that this form of "épater les bourgeois" is as old
as Job. This would just be an example of the Emperor’s New Clothes approach to art favored by the modern/pomo idiots, where “art” is whatever is shoved into a display area with a manifesto attached.

Every attempt to be wild or provocative in a meaningful way has already been done, and they run up against the fact that the Dadaists and Surrealists went down this path as far as you can go 90 years ago. Those boychicks at least took responsibility for the outcomes of their provocations, while today’s pseudo-artiste whines if he or she is called out on grounds of willful aesthetic stupidity.

What we see here is total moral and artistic cowardice and refusal to take responsibility for one's actions. It's a new low in barbaric anti-intellectual philistinism, abortion as kitsch.

Posted by: Ernest Brown at April 19, 2008 8:17 AM

Makes me accept the age old charges of jewish blood libel. If people can accept aborting their own children for entertainment, how much more readily would they kill other children for religous pupposes (passover)?
Isn’t it an odd coincidence that this jewish artist Shvarts is displaying dead fetuses during jewish passover? Wasn’t passover the period during which christian infants and children were allegedly ritually killed by jews? If people use and accept dead fetuses as art, what would they accept in the name of religion?

Posted by: eustice williams at April 20, 2008 6:13 AM

Eustice - are you honestly suggesting that this pathetic soul's religion of birth (assumed by you to be Jewish) has had any impact on her current activities? Does it say anywhere in the article that she is Jewish? I cannot believe that there is a rabbi of repute who would think that this represents anything having to do with Judaism, and I doubt that Ms. Shvarts would acknowledge so patriarchal an influence as a Western religion.

Posted by: Michael at April 21, 2008 3:32 AM

Michael; in replty:
Shvarts has spoken of her jewish heritage and it is widely known. This article does not mention her jewish heritage. Judaism is not a 'Western religion" and never has been.
On the contrary, judiasm is opposed to Christianity, we see this opposition as every juncture, from protesting Christian films which simply portray Christian faith (Passion of the Christ was particularly assualted by jews), to opposing all displays of Christian symbolism, while condoning jewish symbols (menoras are displayed on public lands, the Cross is not !). Abortion laws were largely influenced by jewish politicians and advocates.
So Yes, Shvarts jewish religion certainly plays a role in abortion and all its manisfestations and perverse results. Blood Libel has a deep history with the jewish religion. The two are inseparable, and Shvarts has only managed to put the two into closer context.

Posted by: Eustice williams at April 21, 2008 4:52 PM

here's a poem for Ms Shvarts
intended to stimulate discussion, of course:
https://www.cruxy.com/info/14465

Posted by: Jed Marlin at April 21, 2008 7:15 PM

Remember the days when pretentious college students, who fancied themselves radical, dyed their hair blue or pierced their nose or got tattoos or dated Black men because they wanted attention?

It says a lot about your privilege when you can take something that is, for most women, a difficult choice made on the basis of medical health, mental health, and financial stability and turn it into a cheap Damien Hirst-esque "art" project.

Posted by: nothing at April 22, 2008 10:09 AM

Eustice:
"Makes me accept the age old charges of jewish blood libel"

Nothing:
"...got tattoos or dated Black men because they wanted attention"

bod:
"Fact is, even if she wasn't as ugly as sin, she'd still be an ignorant, disgusting excuse for a human being."

vanderlium:
"the rotted souls of people like Shvarts"

askmom:
"The lone consoling fact may be that at least this one ugly, puerile, man-and-mankind hating "womyn" probably will never reproduce."

--- Glad to see that y'all are kindhearted.

Posted by: Jeremy at April 22, 2008 11:27 AM

Jeremy-
Some people really do deserve to be condemned in the strongest possible terms. This depraved woman is one of them.

I'll save my kind-heartedness for those that deserve it.

You see it is possible to be evil. It really is. If you don't believe it that just means you haven't seen it yet.

But you will.


Posted by: vanderleun at April 22, 2008 1:22 PM

I just had an epiphany! We can obliterate wrong, bad, indecent, profane, etc.. We can call it ART!
Look mom no Conscience! its ART. Yea, just because you call it ART doesn't mean it is. We live in an upside down world!

Posted by: Upside Down World at April 22, 2008 3:32 PM

Jeremy;
Being "kind hearted" means condemning and stopping evil and corruption, much like removing a cancer. Allowing such sickness to fester only permits the innocent to suffer. Being kind hearted means shooting a rabid dog, not feeding it.

Posted by: eustice williams at April 22, 2008 8:14 PM

Is Shvarts a member of PETA?? If this is art, then I'm so glad that I became a mathematician. Isn't it interesting that those from foreign lands can put such a negative spin of "free" speech.

Posted by: Lolly Sandoval at April 23, 2008 11:12 AM

She obviously is very disturbed. I am fully open-minded, went to Ivy League college and graduate school, bla, bla, bla, however, I draw a certain line: if it includes bodily functions/fluids, then it's not art. Period. (No pun intended). She's obviously very disturbed, and I hope her parents have money and connections because I'd say she has graduated from Yale with no marketable skills. The end.

Posted by: Bertha Fox-Dominguez at May 28, 2008 11:27 PM

She obviously is very disturbed. I am fully open-minded, went to Ivy League college and graduate school, bla, bla, bla, however, I draw a certain line: if it includes bodily functions/fluids, then it's not art. Period. (No pun intended). She's obviously very disturbed, and I hope her parents have money and connections because I'd say she has graduated from Yale with no marketable skills. The end.

Posted by: Bertha Fox-Dominguez at May 28, 2008 11:28 PM
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