Kotak is a pregnant performance artist in New York who’s performing an exhibit called “The Birth of Baby X,” in which she plans to give birth to her child at the Microscope Gallery in Brooklyn. Roughly five weeks away from the due date, Kotak is spending her days in the gallery where curious art aficionados are told (or, rather, warned) that she could go into labor any minute.
Whoa! Did anyone check with with the potentially retroactively unwilling participant!? “Real life is the best performance art,” Kotak told the New York Daily News Previous projects include “attending her grandfather’s funeral and losing her virginity in a blue Plymouth,” according to the gallery. What will the next projects consist of? “Curing a yeast infection,” or maybe “taking my son to the psychiatrist.” Somebody call Kickstarter!
UPDATE: Jen and I unknowingly posted about the same thing at the same time. Thanks for reading.
Via, h/t: Kathy Fennessy!
Millions of women have given birth. Honestly, who gives a shit? You’re not that special. Keep it on your Facebook.
You and Jen need to coordinate better.
You need to coordinate better.
She gives performance art a bad name (I know, I know, I used to think it was all bullshit, too, but I came around). I can get with Marina Abramović and even Vanessa Beecroft, but this is just stupid.
She needs to raise $40k for her next installation, “Taking a shit in Duchamp’s urinal and getting arrested for it.”
I hate people.
@3 Best comeback ever.
This bs is what makes people hate modern art. Stupid.
wait, her name is Kotex?
I am pretty sure this is already an MTV reality show.
@8 Whatever, semantics, especially to people not typically involved in the art scene. My point was that this sort of crap keeps people from being open to art that’s not directly representational, no matter what you call it.
Has she given birth before? Does she really know what she’s in for?
I’ve seen many strong, tough, all-natural veganzilla-type women swear up one side and down the other that they’re going to give birth “the right way.” An hour after their water breaks, they’re screaming for drugs and about a third of them end up with c-sections like everyone else.
Besides, who exactly is going to attend her birth and resuscitate her baby and sew her back up when she’s done? Is there going to be someone with any kind of skill there to help her if something goes wrong?
I saw one home birth gone wrong during my six weeks in obstetrics. It was NOT a good ending for anyone, especially the baby. Seriously, birth is awesome and amazing, but it can also go terribly wrong, which is why we have medicine.
Rant over, I promise.
Hint that your performance piece is not cutting edge: it happened in a comic strip 20 years ago (JJ in Doonesbury.)
If it would be anything as amazingly bannanas as the birth/manger/alien scene in the Christmas episode of Misfits it it would be something much more than art. That shit was sublime.
Jen’s post included a quote with the word “re-contextualizes” sic, so hers wins this round of Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!
@12: Oh come on, you should know that every woman screams for drugs during transition, but that’s only 15 minutes or so of the whole process. It’s part of the process, and most women get a grip when they get to the pushing part.
@16: errm wow. Do you have any kids? Have you been there when a loved one is giving birth? STFU
I agree with 12. There are so many things that can go wrong. If you live in a country where you have the option to have your child in a hospital surrounded by professional medical staff, do it please. If you choose not to, you are either delusional or exceedingly selfish. This is not about you.
Yep, gave birth at home with a midwife. Worked as a medical interpreter for years, saw a lot of births, spent two years in the third world. I merely objected to the idea that tough, vegan warrior women became sniveling weaklings during birth. They do during transition, everyone, including tough-as-nails me does, but that’s one small part of the overall process.
That’s all I said. Nothing more.
I’ve given birth 3 times. I didn’t scream for drugs during transition. Can we cut back on some of the generalizations here?
I would not refer to it as awesome or amazing. I would use words like painful. And bloody. When offered the rearview mirror during labor, each time my response was no, thank you, I don’t need to see it.
I would like to invite everyone to come to my place of employment and watch me work: that seems as though it has an equal potential as performance art. And, added benefit, no placenta!!
Not to turn this into a childbirth debate, but in countries where more women give birth at home with midwives, the death rate for mamas and newborns is signifigantly lower than here in the US. Lower, as in “we are last on the list for survival, but first on the list for hospital births” (there are fancy statistics for this and GIYF). Medicalization has not increased safety for women in general, and most births that will “go wrong” show signs of this before the whole pushing part happens.
@20 Finally, someone who’s on top of the medical literature.