Shvarts's Toys
by
Steve Watters
on Apr 22, 2008 at 10:59 AM
Yale student Aliza Shvarts is having her fifteen minutes of fame whether or not all the aspects of her "abortion art" project were true. What's most fascinating are the comments she made in defense of her project in the Yale Daily News last Friday:
As an intervention into our normative understanding of "the real" and its accompanying politics of convention, this performance piece has numerous conceptual goals. The first is to assert that often, normative understandings of biological function are a mythology imposed on form. It is this mythology that creates the sexist, racist, ableist, nationalist and homophobic perspective, distinguishing what body parts are "meant" to do from their physical capability. The myth that a certain set of functions are "natural" (while all the other potential functions are "unnatural") undermines that sense of capability, confining lifestyle choices to the bounds of normatively defined narratives.
The first thing I thought when I read this defense is how -- behind all the academic buzz words -- you could apply the same kind of reasoning to how Sid chose to view his toys in the movie Toy Story.
While Sid clearly broke free from the "confining lifestyle choices" in order to rip heads and body parts off of dolls and to mix parts to create mutant toys, that still didn't improve on the "normative understanding" that Pixar communicates -- that toys were meant to be loved.
Aliza makes her individualistic statement that she is able to manipulate design, but she is unable to negate the beauty and the mystery of the human reproductive system that continues to transcend the tinkering and re-engineering efforts of an elitist art student more interested in deconstructing than producing art.
1. tom had the following to say on Apr 22 at 11:22 AM:
I wonder how much she (or her parents) paid for her to learn to speak such dense, nonsensical babble.
2. Jade had the following to say on Apr 22 at 11:23 AM:
My reaction to this "art" project is disgust and sadness. I feel terribly sorry for Shvarts as she is no doubt wandering lost and separated from her Creator. I wonder if she has anyone in her life who truly loves her for herself. Her behavior reveals the depths of depravity that we humans can fall when separated from Jesus Christ.
Further down in her complete comments she writes, "it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are “meant” to birth a child... While my organs are capable of engaging with the narrative of reproduction — the time-based linkage of discrete events from conception to birth — the realm of capability extends beyond the bounds of that specific narrative chain. These organs can do other things [and] can have other purposes." I’d like to see what else she can do with her ovaries and uterus. She must be quite the sad individual as she has cut herself off from what she was created to be: a beautiful woman who can embrace her femininity. We should pray for her and all the confused young women she represents.
3. tom had the following to say on Apr 22 at 11:31 AM:
It's also a commentary on how low our "arts" community has sunk that anyone would consider such patent nonsense to be a work of "art."
A few years ago Budapest’s University of the Arts remodeled one of its wings. While the work was being done, a man snuck in and committed suicide by hanging himself from a beam. After the wing reopened, museum goers believed that the corpse of the hanging man was a piece of modern art. It wasn’t until the “exhibit” started to smell a bit ripe did anyone suspect what really had happened.
4. Nicole had the following to say on Apr 22 at 12:14 PM:
It's a disturbing depiction of our culture.
She also says in a new article:
“I started out with the University on board with what I was doing, and because of the media frenzy they’ve been trying to dissociate with me,” she said Friday. “Ultimately, I want to get back to a point where they renew their support, because ultimately this was something they supported.”
So the school supported this and (at least one) faculty members knew about this. Wow.
And Jade, thanks for reminding me to pray for her. My first response is revulsion of her, not prayer for her to find Christ. Good point.
5. alex had the following to say on Apr 22 at 1:03 PM:
If anything good comes out of this, let it be the attention she has drawn to the utter horror of abortion!
6. Lydia had the following to say on Apr 22 at 2:00 PM:
After being upset by the initial report, I blew a sigh of relief when I heard it was a hoax...only now to be once again confronted by this disjointed story of Yale vs. Aliza Shvarts. For someone who was "smart" and dedicated enough to get into Yale, she has gone out of her way to show what she lacks: the most basic of human morals and self-preservation. Think how traumatic abortion is for even the pro-choice, and here is this "artist," going out of her way to manipulate her organs. When people self-destruct (ie. get hooked on drugs, cut themselves), isn't it our moral responsibility to help them get help? How Yale teachers (referencing Nichole's comment in Post #4) can be cognizant of this and not feel any trepidation or responsibility is outrageous.
I will pray for Aliza. There is every possibility she might be mentally unwell, but what excuse can be made for the people who encouraged and supported her along this path?
7. Katie B had the following to say on Apr 22 at 3:11 PM:
Aside from the ethical concerns, this isn't good art. Great art of the type she was going for uses something in a way it was not meant to be used, thereby expressing limitless possibilities and pushing the boundries of preconception. She didnt quite do this, since her goal was to show that the ovaries and uterus have other uses than simple reproduction; but she used her ovaries and uterus to do what they have done since the beginning of time, what she did show was that she can be master of their only natural function. Even if it wasnt a hoax and she did have repeated abortions, she would still have used them to reproduce. But women have always been master over their whether or not their uterus has a baby in it, its called abstinance. She just found a more painful way to not have babies, and its not even a new discovery, so the art would have to be in the expression of her not having babies, did she paint a picture in the blood? (it has been done) Did she make a sculpture from the used syringes? Did she write a poem about overcoming the pain or the power she had over her body? I havent heard much about that, but haing gone to art school bfore becoming christian, they dont have classes on 'talking to the press as art 101.'
With the ethical issues, this goes from pointless to evil.
8. Laura had the following to say on Apr 22 at 7:09 PM:
It seems Shvart has been able to accomplish something in a way no pro-life individual could. She has actually re-exposed the buried consciences of pro-choicers. Even they have taken care to distance themselves from these acts and why? Gasp! They recognize the perversion of this act and I suspect feel guilt.
9. Al had the following to say on Apr 22 at 7:48 PM:
If form can in no way imply function and inherent qualities according to her, then can't we apply her "art" project to its logical conclusion, a few years later in the biological process, and murder already-birthed children as an art form? After all, their form does not necessarily imply that they should have any right to life, care, love, or dignity.
Her own comments are self-refuting. She implies that racism, sexism, and other physiologically connected forms of oppression are bad things to perpetrate on other humans-- when humans are generally identified by their physical human form. So implicitly, her argument against intolerance is based heavily on physiological assumptions even as she argues against them. Furthermore, if the human form implies no obligation on part of an individual in how they should behave, then it also implies that there is no obligation for others to treat them in ways we deem "humane".
But ultimately her argument by biological exhibition fails because it's not her body she's manipulating. It genetically belongs to another.
But in the end, I'm just stunned and appalled -- and even more so that otherwise coherent, intelligent sounding people can commit their intellectual capacity to extremely poor logic in order to do this sort of thing under the guise of "art".
10. Al had the following to say on Apr 22 at 8:17 PM:
Okay, so apparently it's most-likely-a-hoax. And if it were, it actually speaks more against her point if she couldn't bring herself to actually do it.
11. niki had the following to say on Apr 22 at 8:20 PM:
Her remarks remind me of this very special paper I once for an American Lit final my junior year.
After scraping together some thoughts, I had about two pages. I needed ten full pages. And so I filled them with completely empty, ornamentally academic philosophological fluffiness.
You can imagine. And I got an A.
The "World" applauds just because it is shocked. Cultural conditioning? What's the source?
12. P&P had the following to say on Apr 22 at 8:35 PM:
If it's true, I think she's making a mockery of choice. Women who choose to have abortions generally didn't choose to become pregnant, while Ms. Shvart chose to become "pregnant" for the express purpose of inducing an "abortion."
What also disturbs me is that she doesn't have any proof that she was "pregnant," we just have her word.
If this is a hoax, I wonder if she's trying to create art out of a hoax. Think about it; she comes up with a provocative "installation" that's bound to incite both sides of a heated debate, it's shut down by the administration and she publishes a long-winded, psudeo-intellectual essay in the student newspaper that will likely get picked up by other news outlets.
Sounds like performance art to me.