Yale senior’s art show stirs controversy

Though Yale University spokeswoman Helaine Klasky released a statement later that day calling Shvarts’ project a “creative fiction,” Shvarts disputed the statement in an updated story on the YDN website last night, labeling Klasky’s statement “ultimately inaccurate.”

Shvarts told the YDN last night that during a nine-month period, she used a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself. At the end of each month, she took abortifacient herbs to induce bleeding, though it is unclear whether the bleeding was from an actual miscarriage.

To back up her claims, Shvarts showed the YDN clips of the footage that will be shown as part of her project.

“The tapes depict Shvarts — sometimes naked, sometimes clothed — alone in a shower stall bleeding into a cup,” the YDN reported.

Shvarts is defending the project as real, though she is not sure whether she was ever pregnant.

“No one can say with 100-percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen,” Shvarts told the YDN, “because the nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties.”

Klasky’s statement claimed that Shvarts told three Yale officials, including two deans, that she did not actually perform the procedures originally outlined in the YDN.

“Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns,” the statement said, explaining that “the entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.”

Shvarts did not disclose the sources of the semen used for her project, though she did say that the individuals “were not paid for their services” and were regularly tested for sexually transmitted infections.

Shvarts’ final project, scheduled to be exhibited next week, includes the video recordings as well as a cube form hung from the ceiling containing plastic sheeting smeared with her blood from the experience, combined with Vaseline to prevent drying. She said she planned to project the videos on the cube and the walls.

“I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts told the YDN in the original story.

Klasky’s statement said that Shvarts “has the right to express herself through performance art.”

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The story has caught the attention of dozens of news outlets such as The Washington Post, Fox News and the London-based Daily Telegraph, as well as blogs such as drudgereport.com, gawker.com and jezebel.com. The original story on the YDN’s website received more than 200 comments.

Comments on the original YDN story ranged from concerned to upset and angered or incredulous.

“WHAT KIND OF SELF-AGGRANDIZING FOOL DOES THAT???” asked one commenter.

Others questioned the validity of her project as art.

“This is a juvenile misinterpretation of what it means to be an artist,” another commenter said.

Shvarts told the YDN that though “some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it … it’s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone.”

— Kate Benner