…is it art, filth, or both?
Yale University art major Aliza Shvarts’ Senior Project has just been banned by the University after a lot of uproar over the last few days. Shvarts repeatedly inseminated herself with sperm from anonymous donors and after becoming pregnant she induced miscarriage by taking abortifacient drugs. I couldn’t figure out exactly how many times she did this, but she claims to have been hard at work at this for the past 9 months. The art project consists of the following:
“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.”
Sounds like bullshit to me, but Shvarts insists that everything in true, though she never felt the need to consult a doctor about the effects of these repeated abortions - and she hasn’t gone into any detail on exactly what drugs she used except to say that they are legal and herbal. Yale officials are not allowing her to show the project as scheduled for tomorrow unless she states in writing that it’s a hoax. She refuses – if she really did do this she needs to be committed, and she ought to be ashamed for trivializing her constitutional rights. If it is fake (and I’m pretty sure it is) she certainly got a rise out of everyone just like she wanted.
