Wondering about the thunder running through this blood
I try to keep my cool but the hat fits too snug
You know Aliza Shvarts? No? Okay, catch up on your research, google a few news reports, then we'll meet back here to discuss. Go ahead, I'll wait. Maybe get some coffee or something.
Ready? Oh-kay. Excluding the personal biases and giving in to a few generalizations, here's what we know: Shvarts injected herself with semen then, at the end of her menstrual cycle, took herbs that would cause her uterus to contract and shed the endometrium as part of an art piece. The pro-lifers think it's evil for obvious reasons, the pro-choicers think it's evil because it trivializes abortion. Yale is now saying it isn't real, Shvarts didn't really do those things. Shvarts denies Yale's statement. Yale says the denial is part of the art piece. Shvarts denies that, too.
There's a real neat trick that I think makes the situation a little clearer. Shvarts says there are no certainties in the piece, that no one can say what did or did not happen. She's right, and the method of the piece was clearly designed with that goal in mind. Shvarts injected herself with semen, which could cause an ovum to fertilize, but an entire branch of medicine exists because fertilizing ova isn't necessarily an easy or exact procedure. She then took herbs at the end of her menstrual cycle that could expel her uterine lining--at a time when her body would normally expel the lining. So: if Shvarts was pregnant, no one could tell without a protein test because the uterine lining was shed in either case. She injected and shed, but that does not necessarily an abortion make.
The main thrust of the controversy seems to be that everyone thinks Shvarts impregnated herself nine times and self-administered a miscarriage each time. None of that can be asserted with certainty, not anymore than we can know Schroedinger's cat died - or lived. Yale might be using that gap of absolute knowledge to play logic games; "She didn't do what you think she did." Or the Yale statement might be literal and factual, that the process is a fiction and that no seeds, plant or animal, were harmed in the making of this art. That could never be proven false. No, it couldn't. See: Begging the question. Until Shvarts or Yale change their story, the piece is true and false, and you still don't know if she was pregnant during the making of the piece.
Thank you, Yale, for muddying the waters. It's all right, go ahead and make wild accusations that only obscure the issue more. Now everyone will wonder if Shvarts is lying or if you're trying to distance yourself from controversy instead of examining the work. When you're done stirring the shit you can join the rest of us at the grown-up's table.
For the record, my reaction is "Meh." Like the much-discussed works of Serrano, Ofili, and Cavallaro, I'm not moved far by Shvarts's provocations, but I don't deny the piece is art. The discussion of whether it's art or not proves that it is art. Yes, it does. Shut up. Dick.
You want to push the point? Fine. This is what it's like inside an artist's brain: ........ Nothing .............. Still nothing ............... ThoughtThatMustBeThought! It's crazy in there. You're not doing anything then - wham! - you get an idea that you have to do something with. Nothing about that process seems rational to anyone that isn't an artist, but composers, writers, painters, designers and creators all know what that's about. When I see bodily excretions used in a piece, it doesn't affect me much. I usually think that's somebody else's crazy and move on. I've got my own crazy, and I find it generally more interesting. Don't mistake me, I enjoy and encourage other people's crazy, it just doesn't always connect with me. That's the difference between the illiterate shit-throwing howler monkeys and myself; when I see something that revolts, enrages, or disrespects, I don't reach behind my sack for a pile of it's not art. I call it art and being upset or not reached by a work does not give you the power to claim it isn't.
Get fifty people to freeze in a train station? Art. Photo of a naked girl face-down in a forest? Art. Video that portrays Jesus sodomizing Mary Magdalene? Art. Hang a shovel on a wall? Art. I have one condition: if nobody was involuntarily harmed for the production, it's art. Not every culture may have that taboo.
Thus: "Art can be illegible. It can be exhausting. It can be maddening, offensive, and revelatory. Sometimes, it is literally Our Savior in a jar of pee... Art can and will elude you."
I try to keep my cool but the hat fits too snug
You know Aliza Shvarts? No? Okay, catch up on your research, google a few news reports, then we'll meet back here to discuss. Go ahead, I'll wait. Maybe get some coffee or something.
Ready? Oh-kay. Excluding the personal biases and giving in to a few generalizations, here's what we know: Shvarts injected herself with semen then, at the end of her menstrual cycle, took herbs that would cause her uterus to contract and shed the endometrium as part of an art piece. The pro-lifers think it's evil for obvious reasons, the pro-choicers think it's evil because it trivializes abortion. Yale is now saying it isn't real, Shvarts didn't really do those things. Shvarts denies Yale's statement. Yale says the denial is part of the art piece. Shvarts denies that, too.
There's a real neat trick that I think makes the situation a little clearer. Shvarts says there are no certainties in the piece, that no one can say what did or did not happen. She's right, and the method of the piece was clearly designed with that goal in mind. Shvarts injected herself with semen, which could cause an ovum to fertilize, but an entire branch of medicine exists because fertilizing ova isn't necessarily an easy or exact procedure. She then took herbs at the end of her menstrual cycle that could expel her uterine lining--at a time when her body would normally expel the lining. So: if Shvarts was pregnant, no one could tell without a protein test because the uterine lining was shed in either case. She injected and shed, but that does not necessarily an abortion make.
The main thrust of the controversy seems to be that everyone thinks Shvarts impregnated herself nine times and self-administered a miscarriage each time. None of that can be asserted with certainty, not anymore than we can know Schroedinger's cat died - or lived. Yale might be using that gap of absolute knowledge to play logic games; "She didn't do what you think she did." Or the Yale statement might be literal and factual, that the process is a fiction and that no seeds, plant or animal, were harmed in the making of this art. That could never be proven false. No, it couldn't. See: Begging the question. Until Shvarts or Yale change their story, the piece is true and false, and you still don't know if she was pregnant during the making of the piece.
Thank you, Yale, for muddying the waters. It's all right, go ahead and make wild accusations that only obscure the issue more. Now everyone will wonder if Shvarts is lying or if you're trying to distance yourself from controversy instead of examining the work. When you're done stirring the shit you can join the rest of us at the grown-up's table.
For the record, my reaction is "Meh." Like the much-discussed works of Serrano, Ofili, and Cavallaro, I'm not moved far by Shvarts's provocations, but I don't deny the piece is art. The discussion of whether it's art or not proves that it is art. Yes, it does. Shut up. Dick.
You want to push the point? Fine. This is what it's like inside an artist's brain: ........ Nothing .............. Still nothing ............... ThoughtThatMustBeThought! It's crazy in there. You're not doing anything then - wham! - you get an idea that you have to do something with. Nothing about that process seems rational to anyone that isn't an artist, but composers, writers, painters, designers and creators all know what that's about. When I see bodily excretions used in a piece, it doesn't affect me much. I usually think that's somebody else's crazy and move on. I've got my own crazy, and I find it generally more interesting. Don't mistake me, I enjoy and encourage other people's crazy, it just doesn't always connect with me. That's the difference between the illiterate shit-throwing howler monkeys and myself; when I see something that revolts, enrages, or disrespects, I don't reach behind my sack for a pile of it's not art. I call it art and being upset or not reached by a work does not give you the power to claim it isn't.
Get fifty people to freeze in a train station? Art. Photo of a naked girl face-down in a forest? Art. Video that portrays Jesus sodomizing Mary Magdalene? Art. Hang a shovel on a wall? Art. I have one condition: if nobody was involuntarily harmed for the production, it's art. Not every culture may have that taboo.
Thus: "Art can be illegible. It can be exhausting. It can be maddening, offensive, and revelatory. Sometimes, it is literally Our Savior in a jar of pee... Art can and will elude you."
No comments:
Post a Comment