Context and Reception
Previous artwork by Shvarts was published in Yale University student publication Dimensions: Undergraduate Journal of Art and Art History. Her 2006 piece, entitled Disarticulation, appeared in the Fall 2006 issue; it was a sculpture composed of plaster, vaseline, towels, rubber bands, and latex gloves. Prior to studying at Yale, Shvarts was a student at the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, CA, where she was Valedictorian and the recipient of multiple academic and humanitarian awards, including one honoring her "good leadership and good citizenship".
Feminist political commentator Amanda Marcotte praised Shvarts because she "managed to demonstrate the logic that drives things like blood libels and witch-hunts, where a group believes the impossible because it confirms their irrational hatred for a person they've turned into The Other." Brown University bioethicist and abortion advocate Jacob M. Appel wrote in the Washington Post that "the history of great art is one of controversy and outrage" and that Shvarts was "an imaginative and worthy heir to" Manet and Marcel Duchamp. Shvarts' announcement of the art project was also hailed by science fiction author Charles Stross as the "most inspired publicity-stunt debut in the art world since Damien Hirst." Warren Ellis concurred, claiming that Shvarts "might be the first 'great' conceptual artist of the internet age."
Other commentators, however, condemned Shvarts's project as a "gruesome and pornographic idea" that had been (mistakenly) confused with art. This included both pro-life and pro-choice organizations. For example, Ted Miller, a spokesperson for the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America called the project "offensive and insensitive to the women who have suffered the heartbreak of miscarriage," and Wanda Franz, the president of the National Right to Life Committee, called the project "depraved" and described Shvarts as "a serial killer."
Read more about this topic: Yale Student Abortion Art Controversy
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