Aborto-Artist Was Faking; No Fetuses Were Hurt In the Making of This Senior Project
As the frenzy surrounding Aliza Shvarts' abortion-goo finger-painting scandal escalated, some cried "bullshit": "Herbal" abortion? Artificial insemination? Nine straight months of crampsing and hormonal fluctuation? Personally, I figured she was just really talented; it is Yale, after all. Not so, says Yale's Office of Public Affairs in a public announcement:
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.
Google-bombing yourself into horrific baby-killing infamy, however, raises not a single red flag. Basically, Aliza's senior thesis was to create the biggest PR disaster possible for her alma mater. Some will say this is attention-seeking malice; I say, it's a clever way to guarantee passing grade. At this point, Yale will probably do anything to make sure Aliza graduates on time and gets the hell off their campus and out of their hair.
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April 17th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
possible title: “This is not aborted baby matter.”
April 17th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
She still needs to see a shrink.
I think that is absolute bullshit that the Art Dept. is allowing this as a senior freaking project. It is a slap in the face to the entire university and her fellow students whose senior projects, including some of those in the art dept., have required hours upon hours of work to be completed. Instead, all she does is come up with a random, sensationalist lie, tells some media outlet that it is true, and then watches as people react. Absolutely incredible. I hope the university “forgets” to give her a diploma, and then call it art.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
YES!
Is she single?
April 17th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I actually think this is a pretty cool art project, you folks need to be more open minded
April 17th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
This has about as much artistic value as Andy Warhol’s “Piss on a canvas.” What a whore.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
the fucking YDN is still not updated, and is letting the comments thread on the original article get way out of hand. the whole thing is completely obnoxious.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
i think it’s hilarious. although many theses (like my own) take months and months of work for hours on end every day… i’m willing to grant that this was a creative, funny, and wildly successful performance piece. and she will likely spend the next year explaining away all this crap, so i suppose in that respect, she will be putting in her fair share of tedious hours.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
and now there’s a YDN article up about the yale press release but it quotes shvarts as claiming that it is in fact real: http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24528
real or no, this is still highly disturbing.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
The memory i have of finishing my senior project(s) is spending my Spring break holed up in my apartment instead of going to New Orleans before it got fucked up. I wish I had been an art major–then i would have gotten college credit for my involvement in this, a fake art show perpetuated by my comedy group. We had a bloody tampon (fake, for real) on a plate and a collage of pornography which, in addition to many of the other pieces, several grad students criticized for being “totally unoriginal.”: http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=21088.
You’d think the YD”N” would learn, at least, but they still have the article up and never printed a retraction. I feel more ripped off and cheated than offended. I want everyone that googles me to hate my guts, too! Not just the people with whom I’ve had human interaction.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
OK, so did she or didn’t she? I frickin want to know at this point. If it is, why did she lie to the deans, risking (assumably) an academic honor violation? If not, why doesn’t she just make the damn retraction so the university (hell, she as well) can end the damage and save face at least somewhat?
But, I have to admit, it has stimulated debate. Congratulations, Miss Shvartz, you got America talking and we’ve come to a conclusion: you’re out of your ****ing mind.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
get over yourself
April 17th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Since when is the act of not producing a single thing considered “art”, let alone a senior project. What a liberal lesbian loser this girl is. She really does look like abortion goo.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
you want to express yourself through “performance art” write a fucking play or something. creating media hype does not equal “art” in any sense of the word.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
The YDN has finally updated their story online–and it’s clear why they took so long to do so:
“This afternoon, Shvarts showed the News footage from tapes she plans to play at the exhibit. The tapes depict Shvarts — sometimes naked, sometimes clothed — alone in a shower stall bleeding into a cup.
Pia Lindman, Shvarts’s thesis adviser, and Davenport College Dean Craig Harwood could not be reached for comment Thursday. Art Director of Undergraduate Studies Henk van Assen deferred comment to the Yale Office of Public Affairs.”
Full updated article can be viewed at
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24528
I feel queasy just reading the YDN’s description, but I have to give them credit for their coverage…I guess they learned their lesson after they got scooped on Tommy Taliban.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
I’ve become addicted to IvyGate. This weeks has been great. Kill this girl now.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:04 am
I don’t know, Keggy. Don’t you think her own life will be its own torture over the next few weeks? Sometimes the best punishment for people is the misery they choose for themselves.
What next for Yale?
April 18th, 2008 at 12:13 am
If the abortions were fabricated, I think this is actually pretty cool…
Makes me think about the differences between bleeding out an egg and uterine lining every month vs. bleeding out a young fetus and uterine lining (every month?!?). What leads to those differences – sex, maleness, insemination … and do pro-choicers of the no-questions, no-guilt, any-time, it’s-my-body variety *really* think that there’s no difference between an egg and a fetus?
Something like this can pull out true attitudes and core beliefs that we may not even be aware of having.
I still hope that she doesn’t hang her blood from the ceiling, though.
And I really, really hope that she didn’t actually do it.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:59 am
Oh boy…YDN posted a new article…
I guess she wasn’t on board with the “it was all a hoax” story…
April 18th, 2008 at 8:27 am
I think this is actually fucking brilliant. She managed to shock people in an age when we’re all supposedly unshockable. (For Christ’s sake, the “2 girls 1 cup” reaction video is a meme on YouTube.) She aroused intense reactions from people, and got people thinking and talking about some extremely scary shit. And in the end, she didn’t harm herself or any “souls”, for those of you who believe that life begins at conception. WELL DONE.
April 18th, 2008 at 8:38 am
You mean nobody was already talking about abortion? Completely new issue there, right? Shit there are so many things wrong with your whole statement there I barely know where to start.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:43 am
She’s a self-indulgent idiot.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:53 am
@badseed:
More than abortion, more than feminism, more than narcissistic personality disorder… what people are going to be talking about are the standards for academic discourse at Yale.
If she is allowed to graduate after this ‘art’ project, she will effectively prove that Yale does not take it’s mission of being a first-rate provider of post-secondary education seriously.
Sometimes being a responsible professor and/or dean means failing students, and asking them not to come back. It also means holding your admissions office to task for not vetting applicants well.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Columbian, let’s evaluate these sentences one by one:
First: “If she is allowed to graduate after this art project, she will effectively prove that Yale does not take it’s mission of being a first rate provider of post-secondary education seriously.”
Really? Is that what it will mean, because I think what it will mean is probably that her adviser and the director of the art department have a broad, if a bit odd, understanding of what constitutes artistic expression, particularly original expression. I mean, she has done something pretty crazy (assuming that it is all faked) and that in and of itself is interesting and original.
Second, “It means holding your admissions office to task for not vetting applicants well.”
She was admitted, not hired. We expect people who were original and exciting and out there in high school to continue to be so in college, just because she took it to a new, possibly amoral and unnacceptable level, does not mean that there is anything wrong with admitting exciting and eccentric applicants.. Also, think about, was this predictable?
April 19th, 2008 at 12:15 am
she should be aborted for wearing that shit
April 19th, 2008 at 10:43 am
“I think what it will mean is probably that her adviser and the director of the art department have a broad, if a bit odd, understanding of what constitutes artistic expression, particularly original expression.”
In the same way that James Frey constitutes Artistic Expression?
Give me a break. At the very least we know one of these to be the case:
1) Her professor/advisor allowed her to consider using biological materials for an art installation – which probably violates some local and or university statutes (littering, for one) – not to mention the possibility of exposing unsuspecting exhibit viewers and or custodial workers to potential infection. At the same time, the professor/advisor consented to one of her students performing potentially medically harmful acts to herself in the name of “art” without any medical supervision.
OR
2) Her professor/advisor encouraged her to lie to the press and others in the name of “art.”
Lying for the sake of generating controversy is not art. War of the Worlds, this isn’t.
April 20th, 2008 at 5:22 am
War of the Worlds for the Internet age, this might be.
April 20th, 2008 at 8:16 am
@actually
War of the Worlds was a tightly-scripted adaptation of a well-written novel. The artistic merit came not just from the Mercury Theater’s adaptation, but the whole of the dramatic content.
Shvarts’ inability to build a compelling and consistent narrative without most people calling Bullshit means one thing: BAD ART. Were I her professor, she would FAIL.
Oh, and by the way, Orson Welles and his troupe used disclaimers throughout the production.
This is more Milli Vanilli than anything else.
April 20th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club (above picture) or Molly Ringwald in For Keeps?
April 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Ha ha. If they fail her, she’ll throw a fit about how she’s being “censored” and her “art” isn’t appreciated. If they pass her, Yale will show it accepts any self-indulgent, hysterical, talentless bullshit as acceptable coursework. Glad I went to Columbia!
November 2nd, 2008 at 6:43 pm
This is complete crap… enough said!