No Matter How You Paint It, Abortion Does Not Equal Art
Friday April 18, 2008
Categories: Pop Culture
American author Fran Lebowitz once noted that "Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint,...
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Art is a game and the winner in the game is the one who gets the most non-artists jumping up in down in impotent fury. In that game, Shvarts scored a perfect 10. She has managed to get the full fury of those folks whom the art world holds in contempt, thus gaining the maximum allowable points among her peers.
The integrity of art is in it's ability to make a statement. The best application of this is to make a farce out of social behavior that is controversial, for example, "the hard-won right of a woman's right to choose."
The other notable art pieces that you mention are very much the real essence of what art is all about. otherwise, what is it about? pretty pictures of clouds? bowls of fruit? psychedelic scenes of melting clocks?
How dare we say this art is invalid, simply because it speaks a harsh message to people who have lost their way spiritually. Decrying this art is exactly why the American society has no real culture of its own, has no artwork that comments on itself.
It's because we would rather "kill our babies" (thats a metaphor) because they are an inconvenience to our fabricated lifestyles, than let them live and be born to create a better world.
i never done paint
is there not a moment when all "artist" should not say to themselves this is not truly art, but instead my own attempt at shocking the world into looking at me. take for instance the guy who put out the exhibit where a guy was portrayed naked with a whip hanging from his rectum. i've always been of a mind that if it has to be explained then it is not art, but then again i've quite often been in the minority.
I'm not a fan of shock art. Most points actually valuable enough to make through art are subtle enough that shock art has trouble conveying them. Most shock artists, even if they do have something in their hearts that they believe truly needs to be said, come off looking crass and opportunistic.
In this case, I don't see what's artistic about preserved blood from alleged miscarriages. Most women bleed approximately once a month and could, if we so chose, preserve the results and call it art. We don't. If we did, it would be considered silly . . . and even that's polite. Actually, it would probably be considered weird, disgusting, and insane.
Surely art has to involve some kind of creation: bleeding in a cup doesn't cut it. But even if, for the sake of argument, we pretend that self-turkey-basting and then videotaping menstrual bleeding constitutes proper art, I agree with the point made that the cavalier treatment of pregnancy is probably hurtful to women who have been harmed by past miscarriages or troubled pregnancies. The use of her body so needlessly and carelessly - because it can't possibly be healthy to just knock back a bundle of abortifacients - is probably also offensive to women and men whose health is tenuous at best. The entire piece, if it has an artistic message, seems to speak to me of ingratitude, insensitivity, and self-centredness. (Which are all valid topics for art in this society, I suppose.) All the same, these things are screaming so loudly, I can't hear whatever point she's trying to make about abortion.
Art is a game and the winner in the game is the one who gets the most non-artists jumping up in down in impotent fury. In that game, Shvarts scored a perfect 10.
Very well said.
To the author of this piece - your personal tastes do not equate to moral certainty. "too far" is in the eye of the beholder. Getting over one's self should be as laudable a goal as "eating something sweet." Perhaps it's time *you* take a step back and do that.
Curmudgeon - such a pretty word for such an ugly thing.
Something done in the name of art should make the imagination run wild.I should not have to try to block images of raunchiness. If somebody videotaped a murder it would certainly shock me but its not somethind that I would want to watch and I certainly would not call That art. This woman is not artistic she's insane. If she really were pregnant I think this piece of "ART" is going to come back to haunt her in more ways that simply 'bad reviews'.
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