Six Seeds of the Pomegranate

There’s a lot of fur and blood (hah) flying over Aliza Shvarts’s senior “art” project. To sidestep the debate over what constitutes art and what does not, and the inevitable discussion over the arbitrary rules designating canon and “real” art, let us assume that the piece is, in fact, art. From there let us consider whether it is the profound artistic statement she and her defenders have made it out to be, a piece of “performance art” that forces us to re-evaluate our positions on reproductive freedom, their roots, and our definitions of the messy biological elements implicated therein.

It is of course possible to ascribe an intellectual discourse to Shvarts’ project, but as The Cat in the Hat Essay shows us, it’s possible to do that with almost any text. One thing I learned in college is that you can do or say anything in the undergraduate bubble and pronounce (or denounce) it as a “statement.” Even now, several years removed from undergrad, generating “statements” regarding people, clothing, art, and events remains one of my favorite games, primarily because a text’s susceptibility to interpretation/analysis/criticism does not automatically legitimate it, its stated purpose/message, or any subsequent analyses.

[Disclosure: I was taken in by the initial hoax, as Yale as resorted to calling the project, although Shvarts insists that everything she initially stated was true, and that it is entirely possible that her project harbors somewhere the shattered remains of a proto-embryonic cellular clump. I attribute my gullibility to the fact that I skimmed a blog post about the project at work; as any cubicle slave can tell you, you can’t process reading material properly when your ears are cocked for footsteps and your hand is twitchily poised to switch to a legitimate screen.]

My first problem with the project is its biological improbability. Miscarriages are highly unlikely in such a closely spaced sequence, because of the way egg fertilization/zygote implantation/hormonal agents affect a reproductive cycle. In addition, Shvarts used “herbal” abortifacients of questionable potency; if aborting were as easy as buying a few herbs from the local health-foods store, women wouldn’t have to cross picket lines at clinics or fight for prescriptions of RU-486. Shvarts also offers the suspect statement that she ingested the abortifacients just before she was scheduled to menstruate, so that it would be unclear whether the ensuing material contained a zygote/embryo/fetus. Any woman who pays any attention to her body, even if she is on birth control, will know when she is about to get her period. In much the same way that stomachs growl when they’re hungry and healed bones ache before storms, the female reproductive system sends out signals before it discards that cycle’s unused construction materials. Her statements are also suspect for the common-sense reason that if she really were concerned that she had been impregnated she would have turned to more, ahem, reliable means to ameliorate the situation, if for no other reason than to obtain reliably controversial material for the art project. Nothing says controversy like an aborted embryo or fetus in plexiglass. Cow carcasses, move over, ‘cuz there is a new kid (ha!) in town.

I was surprised to discover, in the midst of this firestorm, that some more extreme pro-lifers have trouble distinguishing between ordinary menstruation (in which the unfertilized egg is discarded with the now purposeless endometrial lining) and abortion. The argument goes that women taking birth control might be aborting zygotes that fail to implant, expelling them during menstruation and never the wiser of their loss (and, of course, the consequent loss to the seething, burgeoning ranks of humanity). When you add to that the medical fact that many zygotes do fail, for one reason or another, to implant in the uterine lining, a sexually active woman might be aborting, not menstruating, every month.

Shvarts claimed that her project was designed to expose how ludicrous this sentiment is, to provoke a re-evaluation of common definitions of women’s reproductive/destructive power, reproductive rights, and conceptualizations of the organs and biological material implicated therein. She also claimed that she wanted her project to inspire dialogue in and between the pro-life and pro-choice communities about these definitions.

But I don’t buy it. I’m not even sure she believes half of what she’s saying, but since we’re getting into hermeneutic territory here, we’ll just say that the artist’s intent isn’t necessarily relevant to our analysis/criticism/interpretation of the work in question. This project strikes me as a cheap ploy for attention, for her gratification or for career-planning reasons. It reeks of the thoughtless, self-absorbed academic pretension rife in many liberal elite institutions (my alma mater included), to which I was not immune, and from which I have had to wean myself when confronted with the pressures, demands, and grittiness of the real world. This is the exactly the sort of pretension that derides anyone who finds fault with it project as “close-minded,” “(hetero)normative,” “hegemonic,” or “oppressive,” as though agreement and support were prerequisites for admission to a circle sufficiently erudite to “appreciate” the work; the sort that flaunts Emperor’s New Clothes and refuses to acknowledge that even if a sentiment is absurd and empty-headed, an equally absurd and empty-headed assault is not legitimated solely by virtue of its opposition.

For these reasons, the project initially struck me as offensive, but on further reflection I realized that it was not so much offensive as vulgar and insensitive. Especially in its repeated use of the word “miscarriage” to characterize the video of the artist bleeding and the products of her attempts to induce abortion, Shvarts (intentionally or not) trivializes the loss of women who have miscarried and the personal, emotional, and legal obstacles faced by women who have aborted. And by thrusting her own reproductive functions into the spotlight, she invites (or dares) third parties to comment on her (supposedly ambiguous) experience, in the process subverting the argument that the decision to terminate a pregnancy is the private and exclusive domain of one person. Shvarts’ performance is an invitation to scrutiny that pro-life activists will expand to include all women seeking abortions, and so sabotages the very mission she claims to support.

Which brings me to my next problem with the piece and its stated purpose: Whatever she claims her intentions where, the project does NOT promote meaningful dialogue within, let alone between, the specified camps. Shvarts subscribes to what I’ll call “liberal academic fallacy,” that is, the assumption of many bright-eyed, idealistic, zealous undergraduates that anything that incites controversy promotes dialogue in support of a pet liberal cause (or against a comparable conservative one). But engaging in outrageous and inflammatory behavior doesn’t help anyone; it serves only to further alienate and isolate opposing camps from each other’s perspectives. Such performances also reinforce the popular perceptions that academics and artists are elitists who are more interested in speaking at people instead of with them.

What if a group decided to “make a statement” using racist or sexist language? Many people would waste no time (rightfully) denouncing the action as narrow-minded and destructive. While Shvarts’ project is not hate speech, it delusively suggests that it is possible to leverage inflammatory actions, exploit public credulity and paint detractors as stupid in order to promote healthy, honest, constructive dialogue. It may not be hate speech, but the results and intent are similar; both groups would say they are just trying to make a point, but really, their sole intent is to proclaim their moral and intellectual superiority and their sole achievement is to alienate potential allies. Shvarts’ project is insidious and infuriating because it reeks of self-aggrandizement, liberal smugness, and ignorance of the way her own outrageous actions will impact the lives of others. She makes us all look bad, and she’s not doing herself any favors, either.