Last Wednesday, Yale senior art major Aliza Shvarts circulated a press release describing her senior thesis project. The next day, the Yale Daily News published a story describing her work. Within hours, national media outlets - from the New York Times to PerezHilton.com - had picked up the story, and the battle between Shvarts and Yale over what had actually taken place began.
Shvarts told the News that for her thesis over the course of nine months she repeatedly artificially inseminated herself using sperm from unpaid donors and a needle-less syringe. Toward the end of each of her menstrual cycles, she took legal, herbal abortifacient drugs and videotaped herself collecting the blood from the process. She told the News her installation will feature projections of the footage on a large cube wrapped in plastic sheeting encasing the blood.
The goal of the work is to foster debate about the relationship between art and the human body, Shvarts told the News.
"Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it's not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone," she told the News.
Amid the outcry of condemnation and shock from Yale students, national pro-life and pro-choice groups and the media, a Yale spokesperson released a statement rebuking Shvarts' claims. (Yale officials told the News that Shvarts' project has caused more press inquiries than any incident since the 2006 controversy over the admission of a former Taliban diplomat.) The official called the project a piece of "creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman's body" and stated that Shvarts had confirmed to Yale officials that she had not tried to impregnate herself, nor had she taken drugs to induce bleeding.
Later that day, in an interview with the News, Shvarts maintained that the university's statement was inaccurate and that she had performed the procedures as she had originally described. She added that it is unknown whether she had actually been pregnant at any point because the potential miscarriages coincided with her normal menstruation period. She also showed some of the footage she planned to use in her piece to members of the News staff, according to an article in the News.
"No one can say with 100 percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen," Shvarts told the News, "because the nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties."
Yale released another statement shortly before midnight Thursday claiming that Shvarts' denial was a part of the performance. The statement said Shvarts discussed her project with three Yale officials, telling them that she had not artificially inseminated herself or taken drugs to induce bleeding, but that she said she would deny this information if they released it.
"We are disappointed that she would deliberately lie to the press in the name of art," the statement read.
Shvarts maintained that her project had been completed with the approval of the proper Yale authorities and said they were now trying to distance themselves because of the media attention her project had drawn, the News reported. The individuals Shvarts named were unavailable or refused to comment.
Shvarts' installation and the rest of the art department's senior thesis candidates' projects were set to open Tuesday, but Yale officials said Shvarts' project would be barred unless she released a written statement admitting that the piece was a fabrication and that she had not artificially inseminated herself or taken the abortifacient drugs, the News reported.
Shvarts told the News she would not seek an alternate venue to display her work should Yale prevent her from doing so.
Yale also acknowledged that it had taken disciplinary action against two faculty members who were involved with the project, the News reported Monday.
At press time, Shvarts had issued no further statements and her work had not been included in the opening of the show, the News reported. Since the students' projects will remain on display until May 1, it is unclear whether Shvarts' piece will be installed later.
Shvarts' work "fits into a tradition of mostly feminist body art mostly done in the early 1970s," Brown Associate Professor of Art Leslie Bostrom wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. "This abortion work is no more shocking than some of the work from that time."
Whether Shvarts actually did perform the acts she described is less important than people believing that she did, Bostrom wrote.
"Not everyone will want to see this piece, but the idea is more interesting than the images anyway," Bostrom wrote. "So the artist has achieved her object by attracting such media coverage."
Though Shvarts' project is similar to other art involving body waste and self-harm, these types of work "are different in a private gallery context than in an institution like a college or university," said Brown Assistant Professor of Visual Art Paul Myoda. "I wonder first and foremost how it got this far."
"If you are a student at a prestigious university, your actions are implicitly supported by that university," Myoda said. "The university is trying to stop it because they don't want to be seen by extension as supporting it."
Because the definition of art is so loose - essentially requiring only two people to agree in order for something to qualify - the question becomes whether Shvarts' project is good or bad art, Myoda said, calling her method "tried and true avant-garde."
The debate over whether Shvarts' work is a fabrication or a representation of actual events creates problems for assessing the value of her work, Myoda said. He compared it to criticism of a 1990s performance-art piece involving AIDS patients in a choreographed dance. Because the performers were not trained dancers, the work could not be judged with preexisting criteria for dance performances.
"If it is creative fiction, I could use criteria," Myoda said. "But if she has done it, it invalidates the criteria for what good art is versus bad art."
In response to Shvarts' assertion that she was not trying to shock, Myoda said he would "take issue with her understanding of sensationalism."
Shvarts' project provoked strong reaction from students at Yale and other schools as well. Online comments to the News articles were particularly heated.
"Today I am embarrassed to be a Yale student," wrote one respondent. "How far will Yale allow and cover up the mishaps of liberal 'intellectual curiosity'?"
Another comment called Shvarts' project a "horrifying concept."
Others supported Shvarts as "an artist, not a politician," with one respondent writing that her project is "not about the abortion debate" but rather "her body and one's understanding of reality and definition."
Brown students responded strongly to Shvarts' project and Yale's response.
If Shvarts did inseminate herself with the aim of inducing miscarriages, it raises serious questions about the artistic value of her actions and the ethical implications of using abortion as art, said Lucy Lyle '10.
"It's really hard to believe that she would do that, (or that) any faculty member would support that," Lyle said.
Robert Moore '11 said Shvarts may not have intended to cause such a strong response, but he added that "the act itself is so shocking that people may not go beyond that aspect."
"I'm not sure if I can say if it's art or not, but it was very shocking," he said.
