Yale University said on Monday that it would not allow a senior to participate in a campus art exhibition unless she made a written statement that her “performance,” in which she repeatedly inseminated herself and then induced miscarriages, was a fiction that she had concocted.
Call me old-fashioned, but that ain’t art. It also ain’t true. It can’t be, unless the artist in question is Fertile Myrtle. This story reeks of bullshit. I mean come on, people. Use some common sense.
To wit:
Yale said last week that Ms. Shvarts had told three university officials that she had not inseminated herself or induced abortions but had made up the story as part of the project. On Friday, however, Ms. Shvarts insisted she had really experienced “repeated, self-induced miscarriages,” although she said that she had not known if she was actually pregnant.
Note to Ms. Shvarts: if you aren’t pregnant, then you can’t have a miscarriage. The two kind of go together.
But I digress:
Yale officials said the denials were part of the continuing art performance, and on Monday demanded that it end.
Oh! It all makes so much sense now. I can see some whacked out “performance artist” trying to make “art” out of a public uproar. That kind of seems to be where this country has been headed for the past couple of years, right? I mean look at the election coverage of our 24-hour news channels. If they haven't raised "spectacle" to an art form, I don't know what has.
But I wouldn’t label media hysteria and spectacle “art.” That gives it far too much credit.
The whole thing is just gross.
