Beauties: Aliza Shvarts

I seem to be a lone dissenter in my respect for the now-infamous Aliza Shvarts' position as an artist, and admiration for the grand joke she's perpetrated on all of us. To me, she is indeed an artist, working in the fine tradition of Carolee Schneeman and Kiki Smith, women who use the female body as a a medium in often disturbing ways.

In case you haven't heard: the Yale grad student claims to have artificially inseminated herself repeatedly, then took abortion-inducing herbs to induce miscarriage and created an installation piece out of the detritus. The latest storm has the University hastily denying that any of this actually took place, with Shvarts countering that she did indeed do these things, even if the question of whether or not she actually achieved pregnancy during the making of the piece cannot be definitively answered (though it's likely she didn't).

There seems to be a rather large contingency dismissing Shvarts' thesis work by saying, "She did it to get attention." Which as a statement about an artist is neither here nor there: the garnering of attention is and ought to be the goal of any artist, with the exception perhaps of someone like Henry Darger. What they mean is that she did it only to get attention, not for "art's sake." Which reminds me oddly of passage in The World According to Garp, where Garp admits he wrote his first novel for the most noble of reasons: to impress a girl. It is not, I think, entirely valid to dismiss Shvarts because she made her art for the wrong reasons, or to say that it isn't art on that basis.

I would have to classify myself as a child of New Criticism, which holds that an author's intentions are irrelevant, and that a close reading of the work is the only legitimate basis for evaluating art. It is indeed cheeky of me or anyone else to engage in art criticism when we have only read about Shvarts' work, which a fellow student has described as beautiful. But to the extent that Shvarts' piece is conceptual art, we can at least talk about the concept, and the public reaction to it.

I suspect that the impulse to summarily disqualify an artist or artwork is a dodge made by jaded culture mavens, heavily invested in their unshockability, who just don't want to deal with being shocked by art, especially from an upstart grad student. I see myself as a pretty unshockable person, and Shvarts' art, or at least the written description of it, shocked the hell out of me. It sucked the air right out of my lungs, and my synapses all paused for a moment of silence. I give her props for being able to do that to me.

She has also shocked some less jaded types. It's undeniably delightful on one level that Shvarts hit on the one way to unite the pro-choice and right-to-life movements. How? By offending them both equally, the former because she is said to be mocking feminism, and the latter because, well, she's performing abortions. That act of synthesis is a work of art right there.

I have also been hearing people who defend a woman's right to choose denouncing Shvarts for going “too far.” These critics will have to think about their answers to critics of their own politics who want to limit the reasons a woman can have an abortion. In cases of rape? In cases of incest? But not in cases of art?

There has also been a great deal of hand-wringing over Shvarts' use of her own body and reproductive system as a canvas. In truth, the human body has been in use as a creative medium for quite some time,   and often through violence.

Performance Artist Karen Finley shoved yams up her ass in the 1980s. Bob Flanagan, aka “The Super Masochist” took to his nether parts with hammer and nails in performance in the 1990s., at a time when Fakir Musafar and the Modern Primitives were experimenting with facial tattoos and commercial fishhooks. In one of the most holistic art pieces I've ever heard of, artist Pippa Garner addressed her own jadedness by undergoing a sex change. And by far the most interesting and committed artist I've met in a very long time is an east coast woman named Femcar, whose body of work consists of extreme sexual humiliation scenes.

Can an artist get it wrong or go too far? Of course. In the 1970s sculptor Tom Otterness made a work called "Shot Dog Piece." I have never seen the piece, only heard it described by others who did. In short, it involved filming the shooting of a stray dog. I do know Otterness' later work, which is superb, with an etherial kindness and whimsy seldom seen in the art world. Recently, Otterness issued an apology for the 30 year-old art piece, saying, "In 1977, I was a young artist having a very rough time. I had anger at myself and at the world. What I did was symbolic of how I was feeling internally and it is something I would never do today." (It sounds like the installation of a major commission was hanging in the balance.) Who knows how much of the undeniable humanity and clarity of Otterness' later work was affected by this early, regretted act in the artist's punk phase.

In societies with shamanic traditions, the shaman is often someone who has survived a life-threatening physical ordeal, and this harrowing experience is thought to give them access to insight and enlightenment that others who haven't had the same experiences lack. In our culture, we ask artists to be voluntary transgressors, to push our buttons and our limits, to test us. Like shamans, we ask them to go to the edge of experience, and to bring back insight and enlightenment. And this system works its magic. I am a better person for what William Burroughs gave me as an artist. I also know that as a youngish man he shot his wife to death in an artist's drunken game of William Tell. I don't know how to reconcile that with his art, and I'm not even sure if I have to.

The art world is full of posers and fatuous nincompoops, to be sure, but so is the blogosphere. I am going to give Shvarts the benefit of the doubt, and the benefit of my attention, in the hope that she, Like Tom Otterness and William Burroughs, is the real thing.

Comments

[Alice Bachini-Smith]

I would have agreed with you a few years back. Then I got religion. Now I think art shouldn't and can't stand in for a proper morally focussed spiritual institution/ school/ community/ phenomenon, because too much of it is just very mistaken and bad for people. I also think this young woman is a great example of exactly that- art behaving badly, and sending people misguided messages more likely to corrupt than to illuminate. (People who find that last idea pompous or silly silly underestimate the very real power art can have on the thinking and motivation of individuals- which is the point on which I agree with Hillary!)

Having said all that, I've never come across a church that wasn't flawed either. Institutions invariably include people who do others harm. So, not attacking edgy art here at all- Carl Andre's bricks seem uplifting and spiritual to me!- just disagreeing with you about what certain artists are/n't accomplishing. The trouble, I think, comes when people take themselves too seriously.

[Hillary Johnson]

Well put, Alice. Your words are a genuine critique, and thus engaging. I think what irks me about the blogosphere's pile-on is how much it feels like those YouTube videos of high school girls ganging up for a beating. It's such thuggish and un-intelligent behavior, and a sign of how utterly provincial a place the blogosphere can be. This is to me the argument for the existence of a thing called journalism, in some form. We still very much need professional art critics, for example, people who are passionately engaged with their topic, to help seed our discourse.

[Jo]

I have two problems with Ms. Shvarts's work. The first is that she doesn't seem to add much to the discussion of abortion in the context of it happening to a real, live woman. "I hope it inspires some kind of discourse" is a little vague--and makes me want to say, "Uh, have we not been discussion abortion in the context of bodily autonomy all this time?"

The second is this: I agree with the bit of her statement that argues that the act of naming a thing can "create a body"--in other words, that one's perception of the piece depends on whether one ascribes the blood to "period" or "miscarriage" or "abortion". That's a hugely valuable point, and one that's been lost in the brouhaha over possible self-harm and whether Ms. Shvarts ought to be defended by pro-choicers, etcetera ad nauseum.

What frustrates me in the end, I guess, is this: there must be immensely more effective ways to have sparked debate over how naming a thing makes it that thing, or the myths of what the body is "for", or the mechanization of humanity. What she wanted to accomplish has been lost in the smoke generated by the controversy fires.

"It's not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone" makes me want to whack myself in the forehead and say, "D'OH!" What on earth did she expect? Did it truly never enter her mind that the more interesting points she raised would be lost in the debate over the medium?

I love the idea. I love the artist's conceptualizing of the human body, and the ontological points she makes. I just wish she'd chosen some medium that wouldn't have overwhelmed the message.

[lauraw]

All through college I felt like I had to pretend this stuff was meaningful to me or anybody else. So much conceptual art purports to sting us into thinking, but is actually crap.

I may just be too pragmatic a person to appreciate it, or perhaps 'shocking the normals' has just become an old tired schtick.

How is shock enough to make it Art? A couple of guys murdered a whole family down the street from me a while back, and everyone was shocked. Are they artists now, if they merely declare that they were exploring the transformative process that rape and fire have on the human body, and document it?

What has she produced as a result of her creative process? Controversy and condemnation...well whoop-de-doo. Some art critics are wryly smiling at her outrageousness, some other people are shocked and upset. How is that enough to call her a skilled artist and not yet another phony whose claim to fame consists of being disgusting to the rest of us?

How is her creation edifying, meaningful, or even interesting?

[Alice Bachini-Smith]

Hillary- I couldn't agree with you more about the blogosphere! "provincial" is making me smile right now. I personally spend increasing time reading online journalism and less and less time on blogs, especially since so many blogs have now gone pseudo-journalese in the blandest way (definitely not this one!)

[Susan]

Speaking as one who must be too "provincial" to appreciate such irresponsible, insensitive work, I can not believe anyone can admire this woman for what she is doing. I work in a hospital, and see on a daily basis the emotional response by families when a miscarriage has taken place. Let her interview these people and begin a "discourse" on their feelings, and how devastated they are not to have a baby when they have tried so hard to conceive in the first place. This woman becomes pregnant for an art project and then discards the results in the name of art? I have no more words...

[Charlotte E.]

i heard about this story for the first time on NPR this morning. I'm excited by this project and hope that some gallery will pick it up and release it to the masses. To be quite honest this is the only positive criticism that i was able to find on the internet about Aliza's work. I'm scared at some of the comments and reactions that i have read from people. i am an art student and i have studied over the years some outrageous performance art and have not once been disgusted or felt the need to lash out verbally against the artist. it seems as though the uterus is the this forbidden zone. any talk about the uterus or even allusion to the use of female parts for anything other then traditional tasks still seems to spark such controversy. why is it in 2008 are we still trying to pigeonhole women into these submissive positions. if a woman artistically lashes out with her female parts then she is labeled crazy. this isn't new. Aliza isn't a pioneer, however i applaud her courage to stand up for herself and i draw inspiration from her efforts. WAKE UP. OUR VAGINAS ARE NOT MADE OF PORCELAIN. stop trying to force women down with outdated mysogynistic insular views. if you don't like it then don't look. we freak out at the idea of women in the middle east having to wear burkas and getting acid thrown at them as they are walking down the street. we call this barbaric. but we start an insurrection because a yale student makes this piece and we throw acid threats at her and call her crazy and stupid. her burka is made of ivy and pearls. we can't seem to shake ourselves of these puritanical views. she like everyone else in america is free to do what they will with their bodies and minds and shame on us for trying to censure her.

[Hillary Johnson]

Charlotte, I am glad to hear that Shvarts made NPR, and discouraged to hear that you and I are to date her only champions! I wish more artists would stand up for her--and for art. Where are they?!

[Jo]

Charlotte, I just re-read the comments prior to yours here and I'm struck by one thing: Only one commenter made the argument that Schvarts's work is offensive *because it deals with miscarriage*.

Although I've seen the git-back-in-the-kitchen, woman! attitude in other discussions about Schvarts's work, I'm not seeing them here. What I'm reading here is a set of opinions from people who aren't going to champion her piece because, well, it's just not very good.

Breaking barriers and changing minds is glorious. It's also much more effective if what you're doing is on-message. If you do what Schvarts has done, your medium obscures the message. That's a cardinal sign of bad editing, bad writing, and bad art.

[Hillary Johnson]

Ah, but Jo, how do we know whether the work is good or not, if none of us has seen it?

[Jo]

Hillary, my benchmark in this is "does the medium overwhelm the message?"

By all means, let's get her work the heck out there. From what I've read on various blogs and discussion groups, the folks who've actually seen her work rate it as bleh to whatever. Even the people who like what they've seen say they doubt the merit of the piece is enough to overcome the brouhaha.

Years ago (here I'm dating myself, creakity creak), there was a similar uproar over the first big showing of Mapplethorpe's work. The big difference I see between the two (and I'm using Mapplethorpe here as an example of really, really good controversial art) is that the beauty of his work won over even the people who disapproved of the subject matter.

As I said earlier, I love the ideas that Aliza Schvarts is exploring. If she can make 'em stick, I'd be interested to see more of her work in the future. But this time? Extraordinary media demand extraordinary talent, kind of like claims and proof. I've yet to hear her professors or any of her peers that are coming out publicly say that the work is good enough in and of itself to get past the mess that Yale and she both created.

[Hillary Johnson]

Yes, Jo, you've hit on a salient point. We've all felt dismayed at times when mediocre art is over-praised or over-hyped. For example, I thought the movie Juno was a slightly pleasant, slightly strained comedy that would have been a nice diversion on an airplane, but is no Miracle at Morgan's Creek, not by a mile.

But it is equally possible for weak art to be over-criticized, ie, discussed to an extent, and in terms, that far exceed the level of the endeavor. The discussion over Aliza Shvarts is a lot of pressure to put on a student artwork of any kind. Like you, I'd like to see it out there to be seen for what it is, be that anything from a misunderstood masterpiece to a so-so student project.

[lauraw]

WAKE UP. OUR VAGINAS ARE NOT MADE OF PORCELAIN.

No. They are made of meat. The same meat as all humans are made of. We are all people, and women are not more special than men or babies.

How would you feel about a male artist creating a work out of blood and hymen material that he was able to collect over the course of a year from violently deflowering young virgin girls?

You would say he was just 'opening a discussion,' eh? Not that he had done something pointlessly cruel and disgusting and then merely dubbed it art.

Really, I find that hard to believe.

Are some things still reprehensible just from a human's point of view, art be damned? If not, then any atrocity can be so crowned.

Where's the beauty? Where's the intellect? What would such a work accomplish, exactly?

None of you can say what she has conveyed through her 'art,' or even synthesized some meaning from it on your own, to convey to us.

FAIL.

[Susan]

Newsweek now has a commentary about whether to classify such work as art. You may still be able to find it on the MSN home page today...

[charlotte e.]

first let me say that i'm in love with the responses on this blog. what intelligent well thought out commentary. it gives me a sense of relief after looking over all those other blogs that talked about this piece.

in response to lauraw:

"How would you feel about a male artist creating a work out of blood and hymen material that he was able to collect over the course of a year from violently deflowering young virgin girls?"

well i can honestly say i would not know how i felt about that but i can say that i do not feel that it's fair to draw a comparison to a woman who of her on volition did experiments on her own body and that of a man "violently deflowering" young girls. this statement alludes i think (mistake me if i'm wrong) to something of a kind of rape. and sensationalist statements such as this i think speaks to maybe a broader feeling of how people regard acts an explicit manner against the female form. who else is she being cruel to? is it a belief then that any act against a woman's reproductive system that is not deemed socially acceptable, even if it's self inflicted, is regarded as an act of violence, possibly even rape? i see no external parties who were harmed in the making of this piece and don't really wanna go down that avenue of discourse.

whether or not i'd be impressed by the actual artwork. i'm not sure. however, i'm very excited to check it out and judge for myself.

[Katherine]

I am wondering why no one is discussing the possibility that she never actually did anything she said she did? This is what I find most compelling about the project. I think she leaves ample room in her statement not to have actually "acted" in any way. And that, in my opinion, changes the whole piece! Whether you find what she says she did offensive or not, istn't it different to say you have done something than to actually have done it? You may still find it offensive, but it makes you question the artists acutal motive. And I am speculating that conversations just like this one were part of her motive and that she knew she could get us to have them without even lifting an artistic finger. I find it really suspicious having been an art student myself, that her advisors would have gone along with such a project right up to the end only to have the school ban her from exibiting. They are not stupid people and they do have jobs they'd like to keep, it just doesn't make sense. So, I believe that Shvarts is brilliant in her execution and the piece just keeps growing and growing with every one of our comments!