Jezebel
So it turns out that Aliza Shvarts, the Yale student who said she impregnated herself only to abort her embryos using "herbal" methods several times over for an art project, totally pulled one over on everyone. (Well, everyone except Moe.) She didn't really get pregnant a bunch of times, and she didn't really give herself abortions. According to a statement issued by Yale spokesperson Helaine S. Klasky, the entire stunt — Shvarts' press release, visual presentation, and narrative materials — was all part of Shvarts' real art project: Proving people are gullible weenies.
Actually, "gullible weenies" isn't the term that was used, but that's pretty much what it amounted to. Here's the full statement from Klasky:
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.
Yale Press Release [Yale]
Earlier: Yale Senior Undergoes Multiple Self-Induced Miscarriages In The Name Of Art
Just How Do You Give Yourself An Herbal Abortion?
Comments
pwoned!
pretentious bitch.
uh huh.
now i'm really stabby.
The LaBute play about the dumbass pretentious art student using her classmates in an experiment was better...and it was still a boring oversimplifcation.
Sounds like back peddling to me.
I'm very happy to hear I was misled and that she is in fact not a batshiat crazy artist.
gotcha!
"The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to..." Aliza Svarts.
"She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art."
She also has a right to be bitch-slapped. We also reserve the right to mock her high-waisted leopard shorts and 80's-throwback boots.
the bar has been raised, ashton kutcher.
Even though the acts were fake, I still question her mental health....and taste.
I still think she should be indicted for those leopard print shorts.
Hooray for postmodernism!
Hahaha, I guess.@Xavoc: What you said. That outfit is just silly.
whatever, she still looks like a gullible weenie. LEOPARD PRINT SHORTS!
Oh eff off, Shvarts. What isn't creative fiction is Guillermo Vargas Habacuc's installation piece wherein he starved a dog (to death) as some alleged statement about the plight of strays in Costa Rica.
Gawd, I hate everyone today. Not y'all, jezzies. You're my only respite at the moment.
Call me crazy but I think what she did was brilliant...granted I tattooed Cunt on myself in big letters so I am on the liberal side of crazy
So, basically she created a performance art piece based upon being batshiat crazy about her performance art that was not related to a political or social cause, so that she could create a name for herself in the name of advancing some sort of social or political cause?
And what exactly was ambiguous about what she claimed to have done? She has a right to express herself, and people have a right to feel revolted by what she had claimed to do.
Oh ANYONE just slaps "performance art" on ANYTHING these fucking days. This is what Yale's producing? Our finest minds INDEED.
IT'S ALL A COVER-UP!
LIES!
@rosasparks: I don't know whether she's getting ready to lead jazzercise or choreograph a Debbie Gibson comeback tour music video.
And I still question the element of scholarship to be advanced by this work and the vetting process executed by Yale.
Sounds like some advising profs did a fast pitch sales to their higher ups for loosing track or never having a grip on an advisee.
Well what do you know? Her "soapbox" video was removed from YouTube a moment ago.
Sorry, this whole thing is just ridiculous. This girl needs a real hobby.
@sanibelly: I took a shit today and slapped a post-it on labeled "Performance Piece."
Surprisingly, no takers yet. Or pres releases, but they will come.
the worst part? she's probably gonna get an A on her project.
The bottom line is that her performance art was ultimately, of course, about her, not any manner of a serious issue (as initially proclaimed). I am very much of the opinion that this kind of deception, as undertaken by a "student," for her thesis (presumably as counseled by an "adviser") is academically suspect.
If she wanted to do this with her own time, own money, etc. etc., whatever, I guess. But to use the imprimatur of a legitimate institution for your own narcissism, achieved through deception, is something that is seriously questionable, academically. I don't think it's legit that because she's an art student she should have that kind of latitude in the name of her "studies," such as they are.
@rocknrollunicorn: I know!
But for reals, I wore my mind out thinking about this today and I'm pissed because I cannot envision an actual real-life time when the conclusions I came to re: someone repeatedly impregnating themselves for the sake of aborting the fetus will be put to any practical use. Goddamn, this is just like physics class.
@Miss Smith Drank Your Vodka: it's been done.
[home.sprynet.com]
For those who missed her video, she rambled about people "not making themselves heard" when they're on a soapbox and dropped the bit of wisdom that "language" is the only way that a mind can express itself (no shit, Sherlock!). She also peppered her speech with many "you knows?"
@AGreenEyeDevil: Absolutely. Yale should be embarrassed of this, as should any professor charged with advising Aliza, for the reasons I mentioned above.
@Miss Smith Drank Your Vodka: But then you have to EAT it and repeat x5 and put out press releases saying you did it to challenge _____ and everyone will go "ahhhhfa;alsfso" and at the end of the day say "I was just seeing how gullible you all are HA" Then you'll be a worthy opponent of Aliza.
She's not a performance artist. She's a pathological liar.
Yale calls this "art?" Cool, good to know that any yokel can come up with an incindiary, completely horrific lie and pass that off for an art degree.
I want to strangle her with that skirt.
@Cuntlovin: I completely agree. Art is supposed to make people think, and that's exactly what she managed to do. This is brilliant.
The outfit, not so much.
I actually applaud this type of subversive shit. I think we all need to think about our news, its source, its meaning, context, and delivery, and really consider what we read. We all ate this up because our bullshit detectors are low and have itchy outrage trigger fingers.
Do I buy it as performance art? I don't know. But it certainly proved a point.
@lynxwings:
Oh I question the outfit fully lol
Further proof that an Ivy League edumacation is greatly overrated.
@Xavoc:
Electric Youth, indeed.
I shot a man in Reno once and pleaded Performance Art for the sake of my senior thesis. I got 25 to life. Of course, I wasn't enrolled in Yale. ITT Technical Institute isn't so quick to defend its students.
@lynxwings:
That I kind get the seeing what bizzare bullshit you can pull at University...I study alot of pornography at the University of Toronto, and alot of Trans Pornography and I love it...so I love when people push the envelope academically.
@ceejeemcbeegee: Yes. Thank you. I hope Ms. Shvarts has a long career as a starving performance artist.
I have to hand it to her, though. It got us talking about some hardcore shit. But I think the "performance art" label is measly at best. She needs a new term, she's making performance art look like poop.
So I think my estimation of this work's value is probably in line with a lot of people here, but most of the bitching about performance art going on in this box could have been coming from Jesse Helms or Giuliani over the past couple decades
@expatriatedjerseyan: There really isn't much of an "imprimatur of a legitimate institution" on student work. You do work. You submit it. The institution either accepts it (and gives you credit/a degree) or doesn't (and sends you back to the drawing board). Not like I've been following this, but is there any indication that there was any real advisement for this work from the institution?
@nicholas01: I don't think there's any subversive about it, personally. Ultimately, it's about narcissism, because people aren't thinking about reproductive rights, the legitimacy of news, or art or abortions or whatever else. They're thinking about how batshit crazy this girl is, that's it. I don't think it's particularly valid academically or as art, imho.
@Cam/ron: 50% of the population is below average, and regardless of your intelligence level some people are not worth being heard.
An idea is not responsible for those who believe in it. There are a lot of stupid people on this planet, and they really are just better off putting their head down and working to improve their lives instead of worrying about what everyone else is doing.
@Patsy_Stone: LOL, I love that comment.
I'm going with brilliant on this one. I haven't thought it out completely (and only heard about it really now, so I didn't think it was real for any period of time), but for now I'm thinking she achieved exactly what she wanted to achieve. She managed to shock people in a world that's increasingly difficult to shock people in.
@StabbyMcStabberson: How the hell did you know about that? lol
@sanibelly: I can't, I'm Gen Y - that's too much work. ;0
@ceejeemcbeegee: I second that.
Speaking of herbal methods...any pot psychology today?
@Patsy_Stone: Should have told them that you needed his blood for your experiment at using it in place of oil as universal lubricant.
Then you could have made an anti-war statement and shot a man in reno just to watch him die as a piece of performance art.
Ashton Kutcher, you son of a gun...
@Miss Smith Drank Your Vodka: I totally was going for that joke.
I had a giant burrito for lunch and have to go make performance art.
@redheadedstepchild: It is only performance art if you weigh yourself before, and after making the art. Remember to deduct 20 lbs for your shoes.
as an art history degree holder I ask you this: is this the best or only way to raise these issues? Is the manipulation of the viewer necessary or even excusable?
oh, and *my* senior thesis was on the definition of art, arguing that self-aggrandizing, self-indulgent "think pieces" such as this are not, as least in the traditional sense.
[snark]
I also ask: can't some artists dress better
*snort*
[/snark]
Oh man I can't stop looking at this picture. It's just... it angers me but also makes me chuckle. I mean, take a trip to the LES circa 2002 and you'll see this oh so original chick 100 times over.
Also does anyone else want to knock her off her boxes and lightly beat her with the American flag? Not in a violent way, just as performance art. I think using the flag in such a wonderful, poignant display of my first amendment right to amazing performance art will be glorious.
I have mixed feelings on this. She obv got a crapload of attention, and I've had a lot of interesting conversations about it today. (Granted, I'm at Yale, so clearly everyone is even more obsessed with it than Fox News.) So to that extent, she succeeded. But I think there's no way she possibly thought through the political hay conservatives would make with it, and it could have some very real consequences that are probably exactly the opposite of what she wanted. So....hmm.
It was annoying when I thought it was real (or at least assumed she was claiming these things to create controversy of the sort that arose) and it's annoying now that I know it's fake.
@StabbyMcStabberson: I think Forest had it correct when he said art is as art does.
Or was that stupid?
@Miss Smith Drank Your Vodka: see above! (I was an art history major, and have been exposed to many many batshit crazy "art" pieces)
makes this less of a piece of art than what it would have been had it been real. I dont see what she is expressing and if its not real then where is the performance? i guess it just makes her a liar not an artist. I wonder what she plans on doing with her pretentious ivy league art degree.
Oh, good. No ammo for pro-lifers. Thanx.
@rocknrollunicorn: Flag handling etiquette states that you shouldn't let it touch the ground. So, you'd have to hold her upright and punch through the flag while it was held at sufficient height in front of her.