Tom Piatak

April 17, 2008

One fact that is often lost in discussions of the culture war is that the left is the aggressor.  This point is brought home by this story from the Yale Daily News on the senior “art” project of Aliza Shvarts, Yale Class of 2008.  Ms. Shvarts’ “art” project is “a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself ‘as often as possible’ while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages.  Her exhibition will feature video recordings of those forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.”  Although Shvarts’ actions are so repulsive that even Dante would have had difficulty imagining a fit punishment for them in the Inferno, Shvarts believes that she is being true to the conception of art taught at Yale:  “I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity.  I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.”

Indeed.  Although Ms. Shvarts’ view of art would have puzzled such as Michelangelo and Raphael, her thoughts are in line with those who defended taxpayer funding of such stellar examples of contemporary “art” as “Piss Christ” and the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe.  And, even though some of her fellow Yalies are taken aback by Shvarts’ “art,” if recent history is any guide, one day exhibitions such as hers will be funded by the taxpayers and defended by the New York Times.