Talk:Untitled (Senior Thesis)/Archive 1

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Archive 1

DRV

This article underwent a DRV here --Enric Naval (talk) 16:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

renaming

To give less weight to the living person, I would consider renaming to something like "Yale Art Student abortion art controversy". Also, most of the sources on the article don't use the person name on the title of their articles, and refer instead to "Yale student" or similar. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

At least one editor at the Deletion review opposed the addition of any reference to the University. Skomorokh 03:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I can see Neil (the admin that deleted the article on the first place) agreeing with the title you proposed[1], and then I can see Fullstop asking what the press called the event, asking for a name similar to actual and then making an unclear comment about calling it "Aliza Shvarts art controversies" because "The latter would also give the older controversies room to development in"[2]. Well, the press does not call it " Aliza Shvarts' whatever", except Post Chronicle source and WarrenEllis.com, and I'm not sure if Fullstop actually gave a reason to use the person's name instead of the university name. --Enric Naval (talk) 04:32, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
(meh, maybe I should just bring this to WP:BLP, where they know more about this stuff) --Enric Naval (talk) 04:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a preference on the article title, other than it not being "Aliza Shvarts" (as the article is now - rightly - about the event (notable) rather than the person (not notable)). I would have gone with something snappier like "Yale abortion art controversy", but it's not a huge deal. Neıl ☎ 01:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
No preference from me either. My remark re; Yale in the title referred to the fact that the sandbox version was (IIRC) called "2008 Yale <something> controversy."
But I'll take Enric's bait for the fun of it...
  • Is there any source that suggests that the university was the subject of a controversy? AFAIK, one student doth not a university make.
  • Yale is not the subject (as in grammar) of a single source's title, and 12 of 13 sources are about Shvarts' project (the 13th is about honest reporting).
  • It was Shvartz and not Yale that was denounced as "a 'serial killer' with 'major mental problems'." The "Yale College statement and rebuttal" section is about Yale's defence of Shvarts and not about the college's defense of itself. The "Context" section is about Shvarts' previous works and not about Yalie art; Yale is not even the subject of a single sentence in that section.
  • And finally,... does one really need a reason to name a controversy after the person whose work was the subject of a controversy?
But then again, I'm sure there are some who think the supposed loss of "life" makes her act comparable to a Virginia Tech or Kent State massacre. Ewwwwwwww. -- Fullstop (talk) 04:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh, man, Neil, please don't use just "Yale" on the title. Fullstop is right that it's a bad title and I agree with him. Please, this is not what meant, I was saying to use "Yale student" and not "Yale". Look at the sources:
  • "Video & Photo: Aliza Shvarts Abortion 'Art' Hoax According To Yale Paper"
  • "Yale Senior's 'Abortion Art' Whips Up Debate, Protests"
  • "For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse"
  • "Yale Art Student Claims She Used Blood Samples, Video of Self-Induced Abortions for Senior Project"
  • "Yale Student Insists Abortion Art Project Is Real, Despite University's Claims of 'Creative Fiction"
  • "Yale Student Art Piece May Be Banned"
  • "The Aliza Shvarts Thing"
Specifically, FOX news and Washington post don't use the person's name on their titles. Would both of you, Neil and Fullstop, agree with "Yale_student_abortion_art_controversy"? --Enric Naval (talk) 05:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd be fine with that. As I said, I don't really mind so long as it makes it clear the article's about the event and not the person - I think the current title is a little unwieldy and the one you suggest is shorter, so that would be an improvement. Neıl ☎ 10:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I think 'Yale student' is fine. I'll defer to Skomorokh's judgement though. -- Fullstop (talk) 14:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I approve of Enric's latest proposal. Skomorokh 16:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, on this case... I'll just go ahead and move the page. I think that I didn't forget anything. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok, next step would be looking at the "what links here" page on the old name and change some of the links that go directly to Aliza_Shvarts. I started by removing the "Aliza Shvarts" link at Wikipedia:Requested articles/Culture and fine arts/Visual arts --Enric Naval (talk) 16:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Damn, I looked at the list and I'm not actually sure of what to replace. I'll ask an admin. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I just noticed that the DRV says to create a redirect. No need to move the links then --Enric Naval (talk) 17:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

POV check

Is there no negative reception to this project (see the "Context & Reception" section?) That seems highly unlikely, considering the article itself dubs it a "controversy." Controversies, by definition, have multiple interpretations by different sources. Ideally, since this topic is related to the abortion debate, we should try to find opinions of both pro-life and pro-choice people who both support and oppose the exhibit. - Chardish (talk) 21:20, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Aftermath

The section asserts "Subsequent testing revealed that no human blood was found in Shvarts' project, indicating that it was not the product of induced miscarriage" But the reference link does not make the same claim. It specifically says her project was not tested, just the studio. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.8.19.75 (talk) 22:15, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

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Requested move 14 May 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page to the proposed title or any other title at this time, per the discussion below; it is possible that a separate article on Aliza Shvarts is warranted, but that is outside the scope of this close. Dekimasuよ! 23:43, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


Yale student abortion art controversy → Aliza Shvarts – Hello,

I’m new here—a writer and scholar who’s researching Aliza Shvarts’s work. Forgive me, as I’m not intimately familiar with the parameters and protocols of Wikipedia editorship, but I have a few questions about the status of this article. I’m wondering about the discrepancy between the article’s title (the event, “Yale Student Abortion Art Controversy”) and its bolded first words (the subject, Aliza Shvarts). This doubling seems odd to me. Is there a reason to conflate the two, to collapse the subject (who extends in time and continues to be active as an artist and thinker) into a temporally limited, already defined, and scandalous event?

I understand, of course, that the event was the means by which Shvarts emerged into public visibility—a moment of overexposure that she did not choose, but in which she was obligated to participate. It seems suspect, though, that this continues to overdetermine her to the extent that searching for her name redirects the researcher to an article about the scandal, which then begins with her name and a brief biography.

I’d like to retitle this article “Aliza Shvarts” and classify it as a biography of a living person. Editors who have previously worked on the page, could you weigh in?

Thank you. Vera Syuzhet (talk) 16:37, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Right now, the article is really about the one art piece and its ensuing controversy and not so much about Shvarts herself. In order to move the article, we would need more information about Shvarts. You might want to check out the notability guidelines for what would be required for Shvarts to have her own article. I just did a quick google search, and I didn't see much. But if there is more coverage in reliable sources such what we could expand the article, then a move might make sense. -- irn (talk) 16:14, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Agree with Irn. The current article content is not about Shvartz as a person, rather just about one specific performance piece, and I'd be more in favor of changing the bolded words rather than the title. If you can find noticeable Wikipedia:reliable sources (newspaper, magazine articles, books, movies, tv shows...) about Shvartz that aren't mainly about this specific performance piece, we can see about making this article about Shvartz. --GRuban (talk) 17:25, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Piling on at this point, but as a tertiary source, WP summarizes what has been written in secondary sources. If the extent of Shvartz's coverage has been for her her college thesis, then that is the context by which we cover her. If her later career has been covered by reliable, secondary sources, now would be the time to share them. The issue of the lead/lede paragraph is a separate story—it should summarize the sourced prose below, not introduce new info as if this page were her biography. The subject of the sourcing is the art controversy, not the individual. czar 01:32, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I think that, because of the media frenzy surrounding Shvarts’s emergence onto the stage of notability, it’ll be relatively difficult to extricate her from the media cycle surrounding the event using Wikipedia Standards Proper—if we operate strictly according to Notability guidelines, all notable work she’s done since will continue to be overshadowed by this moment of overexposure, since much of her recent work has been concerned with how to achieve “minimal visibility” after being subject to a moment of hysterical, hyper-reactionary media outrage (for more on her strategy of minimal visibility, this podcast and this interview).

It seems to me that Wikipedia largely relies on notabilities/reputations that have been produced by mass media consensus. The tautology of power plays out predictably: “determining notability does not necessarily depend on things such as fame, importance, or popularity—although those may enhance the acceptability of a subject that meets the guidelines.” The fast-track mediatic treadmill circulates stories in a heightened pitch of drama and intrigue in which the names of the unnotable are unimportant: their fraught relationships (i.e. “abortion art controversy”) to power (i.e. Yale) turn their lives and work into overwrought dramas that come to overshadow them.

Is this article about the superficial and histrionic media and administrative response to Shvarts’s work (i.e. the scandal)? Or is it about the artwork itself?

The artwork itself is notable outside the media frenzy—but then, the work and its reception are to some degree inextricable. A story can’t exist outside its context, and, perhaps this isn’t the time or place to call into question Wikipedia’s entire of structure of notability. Even so, I think an argument can be made to rename and reconfigure this particular article into a BLP, in which Untitled [Senior Thesis] would be treated as a foundational event.

In the years since substantive edits have been made to this page, scholars have written about Untitled [Senior Thesis] as an artwork in Shvarts’s larger practice, rather than as a public controversy. See, for example (and these examples are just the most notable among many): 1) Carrie Lambert-Beatty, “Make-Believe: Parafiction and Plausibility,” (Parafiction, in particular, would be considered a “significant new concept, theory, or technique” in the arts, and Shvarts’s work plays a key role in the advancement of this idea); 2) Wendy Steiner, The Real Real Thing: The Model in the Mirror of Art; 3) Jennifer Doyle, Hold it Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art. These accounts should hold more historical weight than the initial media frenzy. They constitute the writing of history, the understanding and interpretation of an event, rather than the onslaught of text and publicity that first accompanied the performance.

Shvarts has continued to be active as an artist and scholar, having notable exhibitions and performances, writing substantive texts for peer-reviewed journals, and performing at Tate Modern, MoMA PS1, Recess, and Dominique Lévy gallery. A solo exhibition of her work, surveying the last ten years of her practice, is currently on view at Artspace in New Haven. She is mentioned by name for work entirely unrelated to her senior thesis on two other Wikipedia pages: 1) on the page for the drone metal band SunnO)))’s album Kannon, for which she wrote the liner notes, and 2) on the list of Creative Capital grant recipients. These pages should provide links to her page, which they cannot do so long as her page remains about a limited and hermetic event.

Does it make sense to have an article about an artwork and not its creator? And, what to do when artist, performance, telling, and media response are so interlinked as to seem inseparable? Shouldn’t the story be about the artist, with a chapter on their most important work, and then a smaller segment on the controversy surrounding that work? Vera Syuzhet (talk) 01:49, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Depending on sources, it's not unthinkable to have one article on the artist (with a subsection on the artwork) and one on the artwork. If there's more RS on the artwork, that will be a bigger article. This is not uncommon on WP, a semi-valid comparison is Tom Kapinos/Californication (TV series). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:09, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
Of course, the internet is bigger than WP: Adrian Piper Didn’t Like Her Wikipedia Page—So She Built a Subversive New One From Scratch Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:14, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
Vera Syuzhet—I agree that the bolding of the artist's name in the lede is inconsistent with the article's title which refers to an artwork. I don't know if you've seen the article Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) but in some ways the situation may be similar. (There is a related article called Columbia University rape controversy and still another related article called Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol.) One thing that I would suggest, Vera Syuzhet, is that you consider posing a question to one editor named SlimVirgin. She has been instrumental in creating proper relationships between the articles that I just mentioned, centering around the artist Emma Sulkowicz. Bus stop (talk) 12:22, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
It seems the artwork is more notable than the artist here, & her notability only derives from the work (at present of course), so for now the current arrangement seems correct. Johnbod (talk) 15:06, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
Thank you all and especially Bus Stop! The Emma Sulkowicz pages are super helpful. (And the Adrian Piper example is great, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, something to think about ... I'm going to delve into these resources and get in touch with SlimVirgin over the next few hours. Will return here with suggestions after I've done this research.
Okay, after doing some reading and thinking, here’s what I propose (I’m sorry to be so wordy!):
1. “Aliza Shvarts” should definitely not redirect to “Yale student abortion art controversy,” and her biography/name in bold should be removed from the lede of this page. The person (Shvarts) had a lot to do with the artwork (Untitled [Senior Thesis]), in that she is the artist, but she had very little to do with the ensuing controversy. The media (Drudge Report, which first picked up the story, and then mainstream and tabloid media) and Yale spokespeople were the main actors in the controversy. Shvarts made one statement during the controversy, and then did not write or speak about it again publically for three years. She has maintained a relatively low profile since, and much of her work has been about the idea of cultivating limited visibility. A core principle of BLP is to not do harm to living persons, and I think it’s pretty harmful to an emerging artist—who has not played into any controversy, making only thoughtful and serious comments on an unanticipatedly controversial work, and continuing to make significant contributions to her field—that when potential collaborators, as well as curators and academics interested in her practice, Google her name, the Wikipedia entry doesn’t speak to her work but to the hyperbolic, reductive, and reactionary controversy surrounding it.
2. Untitled [Senior Thesis] is definitely independently notable of the controversy as an artwork, having various important scholarly essays written on it (see my links above), including being a foundational artwork in a new and influential artistic genre, parafiction, theorized by Harvard art historian Carrie Lambert-Beatty. The artwork should have its own page, much as “Mattress Performance” and “Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol” have their own pages.
3. Shvarts has done the following independent of her senior thesis:
• Her work is the subject of a solo exhibition at Artspace;
• She has exhibited work (other than Untitled [Senior Thesis]) and/or performed at Tate, the Slought Foundation, MoMA PS1, praxisMOHAVE, UCLA, CUNY Graduate Center, Performance Space, Critical Practices, Inc., Abrons Art Center, Recess, and Dominique Lévy;
• She has given artist talks at Artists Space, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, the Whitney Museum, and McGill University (where she was a keynote speaker at an art history conference);
• Her work and practice (independent of Untitled [Senior Thesis]) have been written about in Out of Order and impactmania;
• She has written liner notes for the drone metal band SunnO))) and appeared as a guest commentator on MTV;
• She was a 2014 recipient of the Creative Capital Writers Grant, and a Helena Rubinstein Fellow in Critical Studies at the Whitney Independent Study Program.
Given all of this, in conjunction with the fact that Untitled [Senior Thesis] has been written about widely as an artwork, and was foundational in the theorizing of a new art historical genre, parafiction, I think Shvarts has legitimate notability as an artist.
So, my preference is still to merge this page into a page titled “Aliza Shvarts,” in which Untitled [Senior Thesis] is a section, and “Controversy and Reception” is a subsection. If this proposal doesn’t receive enough consensus, though, my second preference is to merge this page into an article for Untitled [Senior Thesis], which can have a section (“Background,” “Artist,” something like that) with a brief bio of Shvarts, and which would be the page to which her name redirects. This is the format of the "Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)" page. The contents of the current page can be modified into a section of one of those pages, titled “Reception and Controversy.” —Vera Syuzhet (talk) 00:04, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
Vera Syuzhet: May I suggest that as a first step you prepare a new article titled Draft:Aliza Shvarts along the lines of a traditional biography. See for example our Ten Simple Rules. Once you are happy with your draft, you could then invite other editors to assist in improving the biography and/or moving it to the mainspace. The article titled "Yale student abortion art controversy" could then be modified as necessary.--Ipigott (talk) 06:37, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
I would suggest getting rid of the word "controversy" from the title and telling more about the artwork. Only appended to the artwork should be opinions expressed about the artwork. An article on the artist is an idea that can be contemplated. The question is whether sufficient sourced material exists to create an article which would be a biography of Aliza Shvarts. And would notability of the artist be tied to notability of this one artwork? If so then orientation should be to the artwork. That is what this article could be. It could be an article about an artwork, rather than an article about a "controversy" and rather than an article about an artist. Bus stop (talk) 11:03, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Actually, for once "controversy" (hugely overused on WP) seems the right word. One problem in using the title is whether the artwork ever existed/took place, except as a "controversy". Another is the hugely undistinctive proposed title, Untitled [Senior Thesis], and its rather questionable status. Johnbod (talk) 12:49, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Yes, based on what's in the article I don't think it's a very parochial [3] word in context. I have to ask: Is there some sort of consensus in sources if this actually happened or not, or is it all hanging in a cloud of Schrödinger? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:51, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
That the artwork may have never existed doesn't bother me. Tatlin's Tower was never built, Schwitters' Merzbau no longer completely exists, Stinger (sculpture) was made 19 years after the death of Tony Smith. (Somebody removed the image of Stinger (sculpture) a few days ago.) I think "controversial" is not the right word because we are not a parochial encyclopedia. We are never surprised that contemporary art scandalizes something or someone. We accept that contemporary art often does that. Bus stop (talk) 16:05, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
Surely "controversy" is not about what "we" think, but what others thought, as reflected in RS? Johnbod (talk) 16:31, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose no, this is not how we go about creating a new BLP article. If you think she is notable outside of this event, create an article and see if it survives. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:26, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
PS - I don't think anyone noticed that the article was created in 2008 as a bio, then deleted, then at deletion review restored under the present name. Johnbod (talk) 11:32, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
In my opinion there are two basic forms that an article of this sort should take—a biography of the artist or an article on a work of art. My guess is that it takes more discipline to write an article using any other organizing principle, such as the organizing principle that posits that an article is about a "controversy". The word "controversy" certainly does come up a lot in sources pertaining to this article's subject but I'm not sure that this should cause us to deviate from the two basic forms of "biography" or "article on a work of art". Bus stop (talk) 19:01, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
It's not unheard of that the controversy gets the "upper hand", like with Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy or Lars Vilks/Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy. Sometime artists manage to strike a nerve. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:12, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
Is Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy about a work of art? As concerns Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy couldn't that article be titled Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings? Why does the title include the word controversy? Do you think it would be a good idea to change the title of Fountain (Duchamp) to Fountain (Duchamp) controversy? Bus stop (talk) 22:34, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
There are a few cases where the controversy is just more significant than the work of art. Personally I think WP has got all these relevant examples right. Johnbod (talk) 23:43, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
This is a work of performance art. This article should drop the word "controversy" from the title. "A Yale University art student sparked controversy this week by claiming that she has repeatedly artificially inseminated herself and induced abortions for a period of nine months as a piece of performance art."[4] Bus stop (talk) 14:37, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
Agreed. (And why did the discussion to change the title close? I'm not super familiar with Wiki policy...) I think Bus Stop has a point in bringing up Duchamp and other historically “controversial” artists—who, at the time, caused media scandals and were denounced, and were only later recognized as art historically important. According to Wikipedia’s Notability guidelines, living people who do not occupy (and enforce) roles institutional/systemic power will most likely come into notability through their interactions with those in power—interactions that often condemn them in advance as illegitimate or scandalous. Did Shvarts ever have a chance at not being a scandal, given her lack of power and contentious subject matter?
Even if we’re operating under a strict and conservative interpretation of Wikipedia’s notability guidelines for artist pages, Shvarts is still notable: “1) The person has created … a significant or well-known work; 2) The person's work … has won significant critical attention.” This is uncontestably true of Shvarts’s work. —Vera Syuzhet (talk) 00:16, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
As another editor said "...this is not how we go about creating a new BLP article. If you think she is notable outside of this event, create an article and see if it survives."[5] In my opinion the sources come first: are there sources that support the writing of a biography of the artist? I can't answer that question. I haven't done the research. I will also admit to a bias: I favor articles on artworks over articles on artists. My concern here is that this article is about a "controversy". I would change that title to "Yale student abortion art". Or perhaps "Yale student abortion art 2008". There is already a redirect from Aliza Shvarts which is a likely search term so I am not concerned that the article will not be found. I thank you for bringing this up, because I was not aware of this subject matter. Bus stop (talk) 03:37, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, I will begin my draft article and share it for review within the next few days. I do want to ask again, though, to TonyBallioni and Dekimasu, why was the discussion closed? The conversation is continuing, with unresolved points being made. I agree that I'll create a separate draft article as a biography of the artist. But other editors are still discussing whether or not this page should be titled as a controversy, or as an artwork. And if it's about an artwork, could it simply be titled "Untitled [Senior Thesis]", following the precedent set by pages about Emma Sulkowicz's artworks? There are no other pages with this title, and so no risk of needing a parenthetical for disambiguation. If we did need a parenthetical, could it be something like "(Aliza Shvarts performance)"? –Vera Syuzhet (talk) 14:00, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Vera Syuzhet—it was merely procedural. An article can only be evaluated when it exists. There is actually no need for a discussion, although there was no harm done. All that is required is the writing of the article. A new article would obviously be scrutinized for, in this case, the notability of the subject of the article, and for adequate support in sourcing for a variety of assertions as may be made in the article. I've initiated very few articles. You have to have all your ducks in order so-to-speak in order to avoid having the newly created article nominated for deletion. It happens all the time. Honestly I do not know if a biography of the artist will stand up to scrutiny. And one of the arguments that might be made is that one article be merged into the other. I'm just saying. Not meaning to discourage you. Also, as I've said, my personal inclination is for articles on artworks. Obviously very well-known artists warrant biographies. But in borderline cases it is not unfeasible to add a multitude of information on the artist in in the article(s) about their best-known artwork(s). Bus stop (talk) 17:52, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

A few newer (than 2008) sources

I'll park these here.

  • Learning How to Fall: Art and Culture after September 11 (2014) [6]
  • Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses, Second Edition (2011) [7]
  • Real Deceptions: The Contemporary Reinvention of Realism (2017) [8]

Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:18, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, worth adding, especially the last. But all very firmly looking back to 2008 - I saw nothing on her subsequent career. Apart from the last, their take could be described as covering a "controversy". Johnbod (talk) 11:27, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
That's how it looks to me to, but at least they indicate that Shvarts did a lasting impression. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:34, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
Here's something on her subsequent career: The Guardian (2015). Still firmly looking back though. Something called The Quietus [9] (2016). Not looking back. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:27, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
And one more book.
Hold It Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art (2013) [10] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:41, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
Here's some more, not looking back:
"Aliza Shvarts: Material Fictions" by Angelique Syzmaneck, in Aliza Shvarts: Off Scene (Artspace, 2018)
"Who's the Audience?" in New Haven Independent, 2018 —Vera Syuzhet (talk) 13:37, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Well, the second one is looking back a little. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:54, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Proposed WP:MOVE for this article only, target name not necessarily specified

Can we agree in principle (I'm hoping we can agree to this) to move this article to a title that shifts the focus of the article, as indicated by the title, away from the concept of "controversy" and towards the concept of "artwork". I think a variety of possible titles would accomplish this. Which possible title to choose could be a second step. At this point I am just gauging support or opposition to this change in principle. Just for clarity sake one possible choice would be "Yale student abortion art 2008". I will summon all names that appeared in a previous and related discussion. Thus I call on Gråbergs Gråa Sång or Johnbod or Irn or GRuban or czar or Vera Syuzhet or Ipigott or TonyBallioni or Dekimasu or anyone else who would care to weigh in on this. Bus stop (talk) 12:13, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

  • No thoughts on this. My comments at the RM were focused on not making this a BLP, which I still don’t think we should do. TonyBallioni (talk) 12:15, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
This is all becoming pretty confusing with the two suggestions we now have for renaming the article. I suggested earlier that Draft:Aliza Shvarts should first be prepared as a biography. We could then decide to do with what's left. Maybe the current title is OK as the controversy refers to the way in which Shvarts drew attention to herself as an example of a woman experiencing abortion. It is certainly not comparable with the vast majority of modern works of art.--Ipigott (talk) 13:20, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
I would disagree that it isn’t comparable with the vast majority of modern art—body performance is a pretty canonical thread of contemporary art beginning in the ‘70s, and Shvarts’s work is typical of a tradition including Marina Abromovic’s Rhythm 0, Chris Burden’s violent early performances, Carolee Schneemann’s performance work, Elke Krystufek’s “Satisfaction” … even the woman who gave birth in a gallery, Marni Kotak, who has done very little else that is Wiki-notable, has a biography page! –Vera Syuzhet (talk) 17:03, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • As I understand it, the controversy was literally part of the artwork, so I'd be okay with that. -- irn (talk) 13:23, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • As I've said above, I think the main subject is actually the controversy - which arguably was the work too. I don't think it should be called "Untitled No 1 (thesis work)" or whatever. Johnbod (talk) 13:32, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Agreed with John: the subject of the reliable, secondary sourcing is the controversy. If you want to propose another title, you'll need to show how reliable, secondary sources indeed preferentially cover the work by another name. I too don't see the case for a separate biography based on the sourcing I've read—career is covered as a footnote to this event/work. czar 13:40, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • We should call it what our sources call it. Let's look at references to it in the titles of the references: 1. "Yale Senior's 'Abortion Art' 2. ...Aliza Shvarts 3. senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse" 4. "Yale Art Student … Senior Project". 6. "Shvarts … 'repeated self-induced miscarriages'". 7. "Yale Student Art Piece " 9. Student … abortion art project 10. Shvarts ... alternate project. 13. "Abortion art...". 14. "... Abortion Art". 15. "... Controversial Art" 17."The Aliza Shvarts Thing". 18. "The Art of Folly" 19. "Shvarts: Outrage, shock, disgust". I see 9 "Art", 5 "Shvarts" (though 3 of those from the Yale Daily News, unlikely to use "Yale"), 5 "abortion", 3 "Yale", 3 "project", 3 "student", 2 "senior", and only 1 "controversial" (though "outrage, shock, disgust" could be related). Yes, I can see removing "controversy" from the article title, and making the subject "Yale student abortion art project", or even "Shvarts abortion art project" (on the theory that there might eventually be another abortion art project at Yale … did I really write that?). --GRuban (talk) 13:46, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
But many of the sources on the page right now have major NPOV issues—they were written in the thick of the “controversy.” I think it’s important to note that the Drudge Report and Perez Hilton were the first to pick up the story, and their titles (and descriptions) of the work were used by WaPo, Telegraph, and other currently cited sources. Are Drudge Report and Perez Hilton really reliable sources? They got a key fact about the work wrong in favor of clickbait: they all called it “abortion art.” Shvarts never called what she was doing “abortion.” She performed “self-induced miscarriages” or “took unnamed abortifacient drugs to stimulate her menses.” I think there are NPOV concerns in titling the Wiki article based on all of these sensationalizing stories that originated with what are essentially gossip sites. Here are how peer reviewed, academic texts refer to the project/ordeal:
  • “Yale University fine arts student Aliza Shvarts's senior undergraduate art project” (Ana Grahovac. “Aliza Shvarts’s Art of Aborting: Queer Conceptions and Reproductive Futurism.”)
  • “Untitled (2008) … Aliza Shvarts’s work” (Hold it Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013)
  • “the 2008 senior thesis project by then-Yale art major Aliza Shvarts.” (Rosemary Candelario. Abortion Performance and Politics. CSW Update, UCLA Center for the Study of Women, 2012)
  • “art major Aliza Shvarts’s documentation of a nine-month-long senior project” (Carrie Lambert-Beatty, “Make-Believe: Parafiction and Plausability”, October No. 129, 2009)
  • “Aliza Shvarts’s senior art project” (Nikki Cesare Schotzko. Learning How to Fall: Art and Culture After September 11. (New York: Routledge 2015)
And here are how more recent sources refer to the work:
  • Untitled [Senior Thesis] (2008) … “2008 performance and aftermath.” "Aliza Shvarts: Material Fictions" by Angelique Syzmaneck, in Aliza Shvarts: Off Scene (Artspace, 2018)
  • “Shvarts’s senior thesis at Yale in 2008” "Who's the Audience?" in New Haven Independent, 2018
Based on these, I would propose a title like “Aliza Shvarts’s 2008 senior thesis.” –Vera Syuzhet (talk) 16:43, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Agreeing on "changing to something" seems odd to me, and I agree with Johnbod. "Aliza Shvarts art controversy" or Aliza Shvarts 2008 Yale art project" would seem a reasonable choice, but I understand there's a wish not to go in that direction. Start an RFC with suggestions of new titles, perhaps? "No consensus" is of course a possible outcome. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:47, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Agreeing on "changing to something" seems odd to me... What I had in mind was a two-step process, with the first step being a gauging of sentiment for a title change that would make the article about "a work of art" as opposed to an article about "a controversy". What I had in mind was that if there was an expressed agreement in principle that this sort of change should take place, that we then could embark on a second step in which we discussed possible titles that would accomplish what we agreed to in principle in step one. Bus stop (talk) 14:12, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Agree, I think the title of this page should be rephrased, and the page should center more directly on the artwork. I found another precedent that might be useful for us: Dread Scott, who also first became notable for a controversial artwork he made during undergrad. He has a BLP Wiki, but there is no page for the artwork. (I will look into this more, and maybe the artwork would merit its own page.) I would support following either this model, or the model of Emma Sulkowicz, whose name redirects to a page on the performance. I can see the need for a separate “controversy” page for Sulkowicz’s piece, because there was a legal case. There was no legal case for Shvarts’s work, and I think the controversy can be part of the artwork’s or artist’s page. –Vera Syuzhet (talk) 16:43, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The bottom line for me is that the framework of art is present. How can you write an article about "controversy" in the presence of artwork? There is standard encyclopedic subject matter and there is peripheral encyclopedic subject matter. Yes, we have an article on Mike the Headless Chicken. But that is an exception. It is not standard fare. Is it posited in sources that Yale student abortion art controversy is about a work of art? Of course it is. Undoubtedly. Yet we are being perverse and we are only acknowledging the controversy and refusing to acknowledge the work of art. The entity at the heart of this article bears all the hallmarks of a work of art. Many good quality sources take as a given that this is a work of art. And there is no good quality source asserting that this is not an artwork. As a simple first step we should lop off the last word in the present title. "Yale student abortion art" would be an infinitely better title. Bus stop (talk) 02:02, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
It's not an awful title (I'm currently neutral on it) though "Yale student abortion art project", may fit better since sources seems conflicted if there actually was a "work of art" or not. I'm curious though how/if you think this namechange means the article content should change. Is there stuff you would remove, for example? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:00, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
Changing the focus from the controversy to the artwork would create more space for commentary on the artwork itself. In this comment Vera Syuzhet linked three different scholarly articles ([11][12][13]) that discuss the artwork. I can't see the articles, so I don't know what they have. But incorporating those articles and others like them would be more appropriate in an article on the artwork than in an article on the controversy. -- irn (talk) 13:11, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
The Real Real Thing [14] and Hold It Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art (2013) [15] are on gbooks. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:26, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
Here's the last one (I think) [16]. Controversy is a big part of it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:39, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
Gråbergs Gråa Sång—your suggested title of "Yale student abortion art project" is fine with me. I am not concerned with boosting the artwork nor detracting from it—merely acknowledging it, which "controversy" fails to do. "Overturned garbage truck" entails controversy. Construing the subject of this article as "controversy" fails to adequately identify the nature of the subject at the heart of the article. That subject is a work of art, whether it was ever completed or not. Even a contemplated work of art is still a work of art; it is a work of art that was never made. When a student "proposes" a "senior thesis" they are suggesting a work of art that they would like to make. We are playing fast and loose when we mischaracterize such a proposal as a "controversy". This goes to the very heart of the matter of what a work of art is. A generally held and often heard and not entirely untrue idea is that an artwork is whatever an artist chooses to call an artwork. Thus when Marcel Duchamp hangs a snow-shovel from the ceiling and titles it "In Advance of a Broken Arm"—voila! it is an artwork. As to what changes I would make to the article, that is of secondary importance; I have no specific changes in mind at this time. Bus stop (talk) 13:58, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
"Even a contemplated work of art is still a work of art; it is a work of art that was never made." Let's not continue on this, it's unlikely to be beneficial. My crude mind makes comparisons to chairs and buildings. Anyway, we are now two editors who think "Yale student abortion art project" is an ok title. And to quote Make-Believe: Parafiction and Plausibility: "But, as intended, Shvart's real accomplishment was the drama that unfolded in the wake of her accomplishment." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:43, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
Is a contemplated work of art an ice cream sundae? No, it is a contemplated work of art. Are you of the opinion that it is a contemplated something-else? In general, with some exceptions, it is axiomatic that a contemplated work of art is a contemplated work of art. Bus stop (talk) 14:54, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
We have an article on Tatlin's Tower. Isn't that an article about an artwork that was never made? Bus stop (talk) 15:19, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
You say And to quote Make-Believe: Parafiction and Plausibility: "But, as intended, Shvart's real accomplishment was the drama that unfolded in the wake of her accomplishment." That is a characterization of of the artwork. No way do we characterize artwork in a title. Do we title an article Really good self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh? Bus stop (talk) 15:01, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
You say Anyway, we are now two editors who think "Yale student abortion art project" is an ok title. That's great. But there are actually many good titles. That is because what I am trying to accomplish is very simple. All I want to do is shift the focus of this article being about a "controversy". That is the only problem I'm trying to address. Bus stop (talk) 15:24, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
But doesn't precedent seem to say that a page about an artwork would be titled as the artwork's title? Per my previous comment collecting what all the academic sources called it, I think the best title is either "Untitled [Senior Thesis], 2008" or "Aliza Shvarts's senior art project" or something of the like. None of the academic sources call her "Yale student," and the phrases "senior thesis" or "art project" or "performance" are used much more frequently in academic sources than the more scandalous, click-baity phrase "abortion art." I truly believe we should take a long view of history here, and look at how art historians and academic sources are referring to the work: as an artwork with an (albeit vague) title, by a named artist. And, I'm not sure why it's being contested whether or not the work occurred. A work of art does not have to be a material object to exist. Video documentation of the performance is currently on view at Artspace in New Haven, and the artist said of the work: "The piece exists only in its telling. This telling can take textual, visual, spatial, temporal and performative forms — copies of copies of which there is no original." FYI, PDFs of all the academic articles/books on the work can be found on the artist's website: https://alizashvarts.com/writings.html –Vera Syuzhet (talk) 16:59, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
OK, going by the PDFs located under “Bibliography” on the artist’s website:
  • Andrew Kachel, "Aliza Shvarts," Out of Order Magazine. Uses artist’s name in title. Work is first referred to as “her senior thesis project at Yale University.”
  • Nikki Cesare Schotzko. Learning How to Fall: Art and Culture After September 11. Uses artist’s name in title. Work is first referred to as “Shvarts’s senior art project.”
  • Ana Grahovac. “Aliza Shvarts’s Art of Aborting: Queer Conceptions and Reproductive Futurism.” Studies in the Maternal. Uses artist’s name in title. Work is first referred to as “Shvarts’s senior undergraduate art project.”
  • Jennifer Doyle. Hold it Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013). Uses artist’s name and title of work in the title. Artist is first referred to as “Yale University art student … Aliza Shvarts’s work … student thesis project.”
  • Rosemary Candelario. Abortion Performance and Politics. CSW Update, UCLA Center for the Study of Women. Work is first referred to as “2008 senior thesis project by then-Yale art major Aliza Shvarts.”
  • Wendy Steiner. The Real Real Thing: The Model in the Mirror of Art. (Chicago: Chicago University press, 2010). Work and artist are first referred to as “a video by … senior art major, Aliza Shvarts.”
  • Carrie Lambert-Beatty, “Make-Believe: Parafiction and Plausibility.” Artist and project are introduced as “art major Aliza Shvarts’s documentation of a nine-month-long senior project.”
  • Charlie Finch, “Mission Aborted” Artnet Magazine. Calls artist “Yale’s Aliza Shvarts,” and uses word “controversy” in subtitle.
  • Amanda Marcotte “A+ For Abortion Art”, Reproductive Health Reality Check (2008). Uses phrase “abortion art,” calls artist “Yale art student Aliza Shvarts.”
So, of 9 peer-reviewed, academic sources, 1 uses the word “controversy” in the title, 1 uses the phrase “abortion art,” 7 use some version of the phrase “senior thesis art project,” 9 use Shvarts’s name in the title or first mention of the work, and 1 uses the proper title of the work (Untitled [Senior Thesis]) in the title or first mention. –Vera Syuzhet (talk) 17:22, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
Bear in mind WP:TITLE, especially "Non-judgmental descriptive titles". In my reading of that, the title need not be the actual title. I am not as opposed to the term "abortion" in the title as you. One approach is to describe the work in the title in a way that immediately makes clear to the reader some general, almost cliched aspects of the artwork. I'm not seeing the word "abortion" as "clickbait". But this discussion is in the early stages of hopefully getting consensus for omitting the word "controversy" from the title. Bus stop (talk) 17:54, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for that, and agreed, a descriptive title could work here. My objection to the word "abortion" is less that it is clickbait in itself, per say, and more about sources. Sources from 2008, which were involved in the media frenzy, used the words "abortion art" because Drudge, Gawker, and Perez Hilton did, most likely as clickbait. Academic sources, published after 2008, which treat the artwork and artist through an art historical lens, more often use some variation of the phrase "“senior thesis art project." So that would be my preference, but I also understand the use of the word "abortion" as a descriptor (more of the ensuing controversy than of the performance, though both controversy and performance are part of the work!). And agreed, this conversation seems productive in removing "controversy" from the title, thank you for raising it! –Vera Syuzhet (talk) 18:21, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
I would be OK with the word "abortion" being left out of the title. But I would disagree that "both controversy and performance are part of the work." Controversy is not part of the work. Controversy is a reaction that some have to a work. The artist doesn't determine how his/her work will be received. The artist can try to bring about a desired reaction in the viewing public, but ultimately this is beyond the artist's control. An artist, generally speaking, can only exert control over the artwork. That is why, in my opinion, an article on a work of art has to consider its primary objective to be the explanation/description of the artwork. Both the body of an article and its title, in my opinion, should have as their primary objective the verbal depiction of the artwork. And if images can be provided that is infinitely helpful too, although not all artwork lends itself to photographic reproduction. Bus stop (talk) 01:06, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
I just want to say that the link you provided up above to a podcast interview with Aliza Shvarts is very good but the relevant section in that podcast can be specified to be at the 29:50 mark of the podcast. And again this is the link to the podcast you provided. It is interesting to hear her speak. Bus stop (talk) 02:00, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

  • Controversy is not part of the work.

    The subject of the coverage is the controversy, not a physical sculpture. The subject of this article is the the story of what Shvarts and Yale claimed (and left unsaid) about her work, not the original thesis project itself, since by her own press release, the work is unfinished and unexhibited. This is based on the works VS cites from Shvarts's own bibliography. "Shvarts refused to sign the statement, ensuring that her project would exist as it does: as a story." So, sure, rewrite the article from sources with more critical distance and sure, for all that's holy, don't cite a student newspaper in an encyclopedia article, but there is no basis in sources for claiming that the subject of this press was "untitled senior project" (by any name) and not the story/ambiguity as it lived in publicity. czar 21:57, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
czar—I have to tear apart a sentence which you wrote and reconstruct it. It is incorrect. You say "The subject of this article is the the story of what Shvarts and Yale claimed (and left unsaid) about her work, not the original thesis project itself, since by her own press release, the work is unfinished and unexhibited." Allow me to correct you. The controversy is the morality of repeatedly inducing pregnancy in order to repeatedly abort pregnancy. The primary controversy is not "what Shvarts and Yale claimed (and left unsaid) about her work". The controversy was "the original thesis project itself". The controversy is that she repeatedly induced pregnancy and repeatedly induced abortion. This obviously offends the sensibilities of those opposed to abortion. What you have to understand is that there are reactions to artworks that go beyond merely being reactions to artworks. When a work of performance art takes on an area of activity that is offensive to some people's sensibilities aside from any artistic concerns embodied in that area of activity, the area of activity can be offensive in and of itself. Emma Sulkowicz offended some people because a student at her college was shamed for something that he vehemently denied doing. This is not strictly speaking a reaction to the artwork as art, but rather it is a reaction to an area of activity which no doubt would cause offense even if that area of activity was not posited to be art. Bus stop (talk) 00:32, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
? What you mention is a subtext, but if you browse VS's links and the reliable links currently within the article, the subject of the coverage is the events between Shvarts and Yale, not the related moral indignation. The latter is more the domain of op-eds than what sources have chosen to cover about the affair. czar 00:46, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
czar—the word "controversy" in the title refers to what? Bus stop (talk) 01:13, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Foremost, a dispute between Shvarts and Yale over publicity/representation of "Shvarts's thesis" czar 01:22, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
czar—I can't reach that site due to paywall. But in the article I find this source. The first paragraph reads "A Yale University student's senior art project, which she said documented her bleeding during repeated self-induced abortions, sparked a protest on campus, an outcry on the Internet, and debates over morality, medicine, art and academia." That source certainly seems to be saying to me that a "senior art project...sparked a protest on campus, an outcry on the Internet, and debates over morality, medicine, art and academia." Yet you think the word "controversy" in the title is in reference to "a dispute...over publicity/representation"? Bus stop (talk) 02:06, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
czar—we don't use "controversy" in a title based on a dispute...over publicity/representation. Bus stop (talk) 02:24, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
czar—OK, I've been able to get access to the NY Times article. It is a brief article the purpose of which is to update those already following this story on a development in the case, namely that "A Yale University art student’s startling claim that she artificially inseminated herself, induced repeated abortions and used the blood for her senior project is false..." OK, but that is not what the "controversy" is. The "controversy" is the "repeated abortions". And that article is supportive of the premise that this is a work of art. "'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,' said Helaine Klasky, a university spokeswoman." The article that we are writing is about an "art piece". Calling this article "Yale student abortion art controversy" fails to recognize it as an "art piece". Of course it is a work of performance art, and we should acknowledge that in the title. Bus stop (talk) 03:15, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

we are writing is about an "art piece"

My point is that we're not. The coverage is about "the publicity" and not "the work of performance art". This is the same point that was made by others above. That is "the controversy". Sure, "the work of performance art" is an aspect of that publicity affair and the work's abortion aspect is controversial too, but review the sources and find that they're about the reception of the piece and not the piece itself, not least because little is known about the piece itself (by design). I agree that the term "controversy" is not preferable BUT if it's literally how the sources refer to the topic and, per the naming criteria (article titles policy), the best balance of names most recognizable (the name most people will call it), natural (reflecting what it's usually called), precise (unambiguously identified), and concise (not longer than necessary to identify)... I don't think any of the names proposed are better suited. czar 05:18, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
czar—if there is "controversy", and there certainly is, 99.99% of that controversy is about the propriety of the artwork. The reason the university did not allow the installation of the physical elements of this artwork was the uproar in many circles over the description of what had occurred, namely the abortion/pregnancy cycle. You are turning cause and effect on its head in saying that the article calls for a title with a final word "controversy" due to the fact that the university did not allow the project to go forward. And you are overlooking the impropriety of abortion as perceived by others. The proposal of this project roiled the campus of the university, with students in an on-campus anti-abortion group protesting near the university's administration building against the disclosed details of the proposed art project. "Students gathered in Beinecke Plaza near the administration building to protest yesterday afternoon, said sophomore John Behan, president of Choose Life at Yale. 'CLAY and the entire Yale community, I think, are appalled at what was a serious lapse in taste on the part of the student and the Yale art department.'" Inexplicably you are focussed on the fact that the university stepped in and blocked the proposed artwork from going forward. Yes, that is "controversial" too. Universities rarely forbid the making of art. The making of art is almost a cherished right enshrined in the right to free speech. But of course free speech has its limits and the university exercised its right prevent the work of art from going forward. A university exercising such a right is not enormously controversial. It is only slightly controversial. "Controversy", if it exists here, and it certainly does, is found in the student's insistence that her body is her own and that she can do what she wants with it even if it involves inducing pregnancy in her body and then aborting that pregnancy, multiple times within a 9 month period. In fact her stated aim was to repeat this cycle the maximum number of times possible within that 9 month timeframe. The uproar that ensued constitutes a "controversy". The reason "controversy" does not belong in the title of our article is because we are writing an article about a work of art and what transpired after it was proposed. It is perverse to allow the ensuing uproar to supersede the existence of the artwork itself. This is not an article about an anti-abortion group protesting a work of art. The subject of this article is the work of art itself. In fact nobody is even interested in the protestors. Do reliable sources follow up on the work of the protesters? No, they do not. Do reliable sources include extensive quotes from the protesters? No, they do not. But the work of Aliza Shvarts is elaborated upon in reliable sources. Shvarts is quoted as saying "I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity. I think that I'm creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be." And others are reliably sourced as commenting on the work of Aliza Shvarts. Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky says: "She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art." The subject of this article is clearly the work of art. I don't know how you are managing to misread sources to conclude that we are writing an article about opposition to an artwork. All of my quotes are from this source. Bus stop (talk) 12:00, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm not insisting on the word choice of "controversy" in the title, but I am saying that the subject at hand is a media frenzy or publicity stunt and not "a work of performance art" itself. (And I think other editors confirmed this above so I don't see why this point hasn't landed.) Look at the article and the sources we'd use for expansion: the subject of the coverage is NOT protests or commentary from abortion rights groups (pro or anti). Nor is the subject of the coverage critical analysis of the undisplayed artwork. The subject is how the he-said-she-said played out in the media, or who held claim to the truth. We'd need to have much more info on the artwork itself or commentary specific to the artwork itself to repurpose the article as being about an art project rather than about an incident/controversy/affair/however you want to put it. I have nothing else to add here without repeating myself, so if you continue to disagree, only next step would be to survey the sources to show what they hold as their subject. Look especially at the academic works with critical distance that VS wants to use as the basis for the article. czar 14:14, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

czar—you provided a source—the NY Times. It refers to "her senior year performance art piece".[17] Yet inexplicably you are using the term "publicity stunt". Is there a source for that? Which source considers this is a "publicity stunt"? You are discussing "repurposing the article". But I specifically opened this section of the Talk page to discuss the title of the article. My purpose here is simple: retitle the article to be about the artwork. The sources all accept that it is an artwork. Privately I'm sure many are howling that this is not an artwork at all. But I don't think we succumb to the views expressed by poor quality sources. We hew to the language used by the best quality sources. I've seen no source characterizing this as a "publicity stunt". Any source of reasonably good quality refers to this as performance art or some similar terminology. Bus stop (talk) 15:18, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Don't get hung up on the phrase "publicity stunt"—the point is that the coverage is about the affair (would you prefer "controversy"?) as it played out in the media and not the details of her original performance. As I've already said, others have already explicated these points above, but if you want them in one place:

But, as intended, Shvarts's real accomplishment was the drama that unfolded in the wake of her announcement. ... Shvarts refused to sign the statement, ensuring that her project would exist as it does: as a story.
— Carrie Lambert-Beatty, “Make-Believe: Parafiction and Plausability”, October No. 129 (Summer 2009): 51-84. Cambridge, MA: MIT University Press. (section is about media coverage of event, not the insemination performance)

When the Drudge Report publicized the news of what it called abortion art, Shvartss work became a national controversy. Yale ultimately barred the installation from exhibition; it remains unseen to this day. In the midst of the controversy, it seemed that everyone was siding together against Shvarts. ...
— Rosemary Candelario. Abortion Performance and Politics. CSW Update, UCLA Center for the Study of Women. 2012: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7sv5h222 (section is about the media coverage [lit. "controversy"] as part of Shvarts's artistic "intervention")

[too conflates the "scandal"/"controversy" with the peformance work together as "the project"; majority about the publicity as it unfolds, the rest on cultural allusions to other projects with similar public reactions] It is as a conceptual exploration of sexual entitlement that Shvarts's work takes on its most powerful political charge. ... the project involved nothing more than the production of the idea that she might have been pregnant ... The controversy provoked by the idea of her project surfaces the production of sex as an affective disciplining of the reproductive body
— Jennifer Doyle. Hold it Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013).

in ... the only public response she offered during the controversy, Shvarts detailed the process and intentions of [untitled] senior thesis ... Once [the cube installation] was forbidden by the university, the lack of these materials exacerbated the controversy ...
— chapter in Nikki Cesare Schotzko. Learning How to Fall: Art and Culture After September 11. (New York: Routledge 2015). almost exclusively recounting of media about event & response to doyle

And these sources are purely via Shvarts's on-site bibliography. Literally every source covers the media affair as what makes this subject important. Even the interpretation is about the media event. To paraphrase all of those sources, the news of her untitled senior thesis is what generated a public debate over ambiguity and truth, as little was ever even known about the original performance. The story of the work is the accomplishment/challenge that the sources discuss, not the work itself, as was affirmed by her own statement during the affair: "because of these measures or privacy, this piece exists only in its telling" (and hence why, as you disdain, the original insemination performance is conflated with media-frenzy-as-performance-art). It's preposterous to look at this mountain of sourcing and say that they're really discussing some kernel performance piece rather than the volumes of publicity folded in on itself. I have no intentions of adopting this article as a project. I think my arguments heretofore are convincing, reasonable, and stark. If you'd like to change the page's name, you're going to need some convincing and well-hidden cache of sourcing because the above is just the iceberg—ignore the headlines, the individual referents towards the work/project/affair in the sources, and look holistically about what the refs are about as if you would use them to expand this article to its fullest state. They're predominantly about the publicity and not a petroleum jelly cube, they're about public fictions and not a videorecorded bathroom performance: The subject is a controversy, affair, or otherwise event and not the untitled senior thesis project. czar 16:25, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Agree with this, pretty much. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:33, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Okay. I argue, using the same sources as everyone already has, that the discourse surrounding the work is part of the work, and so this page is *already* a page about the artwork, and it is both necessary and intellectually honest that we retitle it as such.
Let’s begin with Shvarts’s statement about the work: “The piece exists only in its telling. This telling can take textual, visual, spatial, temporal, and performative forms—copies of copies of which there is no original … The artwork exists as the verbal narrative you see above, as an installation that will take place in Green Hall [which was censored and never exhibited, but as you can see, is only one aspect of the work], as a time-based performance [the video documentation of which was never exhibited, but video documentation is but one mode of documentation, and performance doesn’t rely on documentation, anyway. Another mode would be the aforementioned “verbal narrative.”], as a independent concept, as a myth, and as public discourse.” The last three items claim the space of public discourse on the work as part of the work. This is not a new concept in art, especially contemporary performance and conceptual art. It has been theorized significantly as Relational art. Under the rubric of relational art, the discourse surrounding the work can easily be considered part of the work. Per the Wiki page on relational art: relational artworks “take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space.”
Shvarts continues, the work “creates an ambiguity that isolates the locus of ontology to an act of readership.” This is what we’re seeing in this discussion: given that ontological definitions of art have been destabilized in Shvarts’s work, we are having trouble categorizing which aspect of the piece is art, and which is not. Is only the performance a work of art? And only if there is documentation? Is a fiction, a myth, or a rumor a work of art? And what about the discourse generated by it—is that part of the work of art? What if the creator claims that the work exists as a “concept, a myth, and public discourse”? Given that, in conceptual art, artworks do not necessarily have to be created—the idea suffices—and in relational art, “the whole of human relations and their social context” is artmaking material, and in performances such as Rhythm 0 or Carry That Weight, the outcome of a given performance situation is not necessarily known by the artist beforehand, but relies on the participation of (willing or unwilling) collaborators, why should we not take the artist at her word that this artwork takes many forms, including public discourse?
So, it’s true that the peer reviewed art historical journals I cited discuss "the concept, the myth, and the public discourse." These are aspects of the artwork, as stated by the artist (and, as you'll see, the cited sources agree). Harvard art historian Carrie Lambert-Beatty coined an entirely new term, "parafiction," to describe this kind of work, which bridges performance, rumor, fiction, discourse, mass media reaction, public debate, and so on. “Fiction or fictiveness has emerged as an important category in recent art … in parafiction real and/or imaginary personages and stories intersect with the world as it is being lived … parafictional strategies are oriented less toward the disappearance of the real than toward the pragmatics of trust … these fictions are experienced as fact.” Lambert Beatty writes that if Shvarts had shown the documentation and sculptures, this “would have destroyed the piece.” What is the piece, then? The piece is the parafiction, the story, the conversations with Yale, the rumors and gossip of a performance which can never be fully authenticated.
Okay, moving on to the Jennifer Doyle: in literally the sentence after the sentence Czar quoted, Doyle writes, “the content of the performance has expanded to include nearly all reaction to it.” Later: “Shvarts’s project explores the discursive field through which the female body is produced and read as a reproductive body. She hardly needed to exhibit in the student thesis show to realize the full impact of this dimension of the project. In fact the interruption of the project by Yale’s interdiction brings the work to its most compelling formal conclusion.” Doyle then goes on to assess the formal aspects of the temporal performance, writing about Shvarts’s “removal of sex … [and] all traces of romance, love, and desire” (here’s the formal analysis of an artwork that Czar was looking for. But I’ll remind you all that, if we accept Shvarts’s parameters for her own artwork, analysis of the public discourse is also analysis of the work).
And now Schotzko: In analyzing the “lack of [sculptural] materials,” Schotzko considers that the lack of physical artwork caused the “archive of immaterial documentation accumulating in virtual space.” This sounds like formal analysis of an artwork to me. And if you check Shvarts’s exhibition at Artspace, you’ll see pieces called “Banners”, which are print-outs of comment feeds on articles about the work: the “immaterial documentation accumulating in virtual space” becomes (or always has been) part of the work. Shottko goes on to say that “the project [was] restricted to … its linguistic narrative—both the narrative generated by Shvarts herself, in response to Yale’s censorship, and that generated on the part of what became a virtual audience to a work made virtual through the ensuing controversy.” So, the linguistic narrative generated online and in mass media was part of the project. Schotzko sees no neat conclusion to this restriction (and I agree, it's brilliantly complex!) asking: “How do we reconcile the site (and cite) of Shvarts’s performance with its ongoing virtual reiterations? How do we reconcile the documentation of the event, to which we, as audience, have no access, with the event of its documentation, which we ourselves have created?”
All these academic, peer-reviewed sources, written by art historians, theorists, and critics, agree that the work’s reception—the discourse surrounding it—is part of the artwork. The artist herself claims this space as part of the artwork. Why are we so resistant to this? It would be incredibly easy to rework this Wiki article to explain the durational performance (many notable sources describe the performance), the intended sculptural display (many notable sources describe the intended display), and the ensuing discourse/recpetion (many notable sources describe and analyze the discourse/reception). The article would note that these components are all considered part of the artwork. The article would use notable sources by experts to establish this. I fail to understand the continued resistance to this. The project, in all its manifestations, is an artwork. It is a complex and interesting artwork that has been covered as such at length by various respected sources.
If you all still do not like the artwork’s title as the title of the page about the artwork, which, ironically, under the parameters I've delineated just now, this page already is, whether we like it or not, can we all agree that the artist’s name is used in enough sources, and the description “senior thesis project” is used in enough sources, that this page, which I repeat, is already about the artwork, whether we like it or not, based on many notable definitions and descriptions of what the artwork is, can reasonably be titled something along the lines of “Aliza Shvarts senior thesis project”? –Vera Syuzhet (talk) 00:17, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Your quotes verify that the subject of secondary source commentary is the publicity of the idea of the work and not necessarily the "senior thesis" itself. This is distinct from sources saying that the publicity/story/parafiction was itself her thesis: maybe they said the two are conflated, but no amalgam of sources claim that the parafiction was itself her thesis, so the title "Aliza Shvarts thesis project" does not describe the subject just as it's not the subject of the source material. (Re: the quoting, we look to secondary sources for their editorial distance before primary source writings by the artist, as we lean on the former's authority/analysis as having the benefit of editorial distance.) If enough sources called it "Aliza Shvarts abortion parafiction", we would call it that, but they don't. The sources describe a social incident and the most accurate term they use is "controversy". I don't think we'll have agreement on a title change as long as the suggestion infers that the subject was just a "project" rather than a publicity/story based on a kernel of a project.
I think this sentiment was clear enough from the survey consensus above and I see little room for further concision. But I suppose the last word goes to whatever self-absorbed thesis is written about Wikipedia commentary. czar 04:43, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support move to "Aliza Shvarts senior thesis art project". This talk page is now part of the work of art, and my contribution is adding the word "art" to the proposed title. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:35, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
This Talk page may or may not be part of the work of art but that is irrelevant as no reliable sources are supportive of such an assertion. No, this article should be retitled to be about a work of art because all good quality sources refer to it as artwork. The fact that there was controversy subsequent to the artwork's inception does not obviate its identity as artwork. There is no reliable source supportive of the notion that the artwork loses its status as artwork as a consequence of controversy. Yet inexplicably some editors are arguing that the entity at the heart of this article is a "controversy". Bus stop (talk) 02:39, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
"The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution." (WP:BURDEN) We don't have direct support for this Talk page being part of the work of art. Bus stop (talk) 02:49, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
The title I think is best is "Yale student abortion art 2008". There is already a redirect from "Aliza Shvarts". I favor this title because of the presence of significant keywords. I think the year is a significant keyword. My main argument is to get rid of the term "controversy" from the title so I am open to almost any title that accomplishes that. Bus stop (talk) 04:26, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
AFAIK, you could drop "2008" without risk of confusion. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:44, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Another possibility is to use the actual title of the artwork which is "Untitled [Senior Thesis]". Eventually it may be advisable to move this to Aliza Shvarts, as originally suggested by Vera Syuzhet, though there is no harm in making incremental changes. I just feel that the name change involving dropping the word "controversy" is easy and called-for. Bus stop (talk) 20:15, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
I think that's too ambiguous. "Yale student abortion art project" was suggested above, and I think that works best. Most sources seem to highlight both Yale and the abortion aspect, and "art project" is a neutral description. -- irn (talk) 20:43, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Support changing the title to the title of the artwork, with the possibility of the article being shifted to "Aliza Shvarts" as the artist's career continues. If we need a disambiguation (which we shouldn't, as there are no other pages called "Untitled [Senior Thesis]"), I propose "Untitled [Senior Thesis] (Performance)" or "Untitled [Senior Thesis] (Shvarts)." This is precedent for other Wikipedia pages on untitled artworks.–Vera Syuzhet (talk) 23:53, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Do both Irn and Gråbergs Gråa Sång oppose the title with the year included? I'm referring to "Yale student abortion art 2008". Bus stop (talk) 21:02, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
I don't see the point of the year. Is it to disambiguate? It seems unnecessary to me. That said, when years are included in the title, we tend to put the year first, and that sounds more natural to me: "2008 Yale student abortion art". But, again, I don't think it's necessary. (I also don't like the use of "art" as a stand-alone noun in this situation, but I don't think we need to head down that road right now.) The short answer is yes, I oppose the title with the year included. -- irn (talk) 22:41, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Do we all agree that this is a page about the artwork, as I substantiated in my above post using descriptions of the work provided by both the artist and scholars writing about the work? And, if so, why not title the article about the artwork with the artwork's title, as Bus Stop suggested above? Is there any example on Wikipedia of a page about an artwork that is not titled using the artwork's title? —Vera Syuzhet (talk) 23:50, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Really it's time to stop this endless circling discussion, fix on an alternative (or two maybe) and propose it. But notice that several editors are likely not to support a move, however often the proposers repeat their arguments. Johnbod (talk) 20:57, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
OK, Johnbod, weigh in with your opinion. Bus stop (talk) 21:02, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm interested in hearing the arguments against removing the word "controversy" from this title. At this point I can only guess what those arguments are. My feeling is that we should follow standard form. An article about a work of art should never be an article about a "controversy". Unless of course there are compelling reasons to make an exception in this case. Bus stop (talk) 06:07, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I second this interest in hearing the arguments against a move. I also would like to see those who oppose a move point to another Wikipedia page in which a controversial artwork is not seen as notable in and of itself, and the controversy surrounding the artwork is seen as notable. It would also be interesting to see any page about any artwork which is not titled with the title of the artwork. Wondering about this, I browsed the pages of various controversial artworks with which I am familiar:
  • Myra (painting)
  • The Spear (painting)
  • Piss Christ
  • My Bed
  • Mirth & Girth (Note that this page redirects from "Harold Washington painting controversy, not the other way around. Editors on the talk page seem pretty unbothered by the idea that, although the article is mostly about the controversy, since the painting generated the controversy, the article should be titled after the painting (and be an article about the painting).)
Then, I looked back in the “controversies” category until 2000. Happy to look back further. I could not find a single instance in which a work of art was considered controversial and neither the artwork nor the artist received a Wiki page, but the controversy did. In the case of controversial artworks, the standard seems pretty clear: the title of the artwork is the title of the Wiki article. This article should conform. If disambiguation is needed, standard also seems pretty clear: the type of artwork, and potentially the creator, is specified.
  • Adam's Song Here's a “work of art” which is categorized as a controversy, but is still titled after the work’s title.
  • Edward and Elaine Brown Here are some people who are notable only for being controversial, and are categorized as a controversy, but are still titled after their own names.
Following this clear and undeniable precedent, this article should be titled: “Untitled [Senior Thesis] (performance)” or “Untitled [Senior Thesis] (Aliza Shvarts performance).” If there are arguments to the contrary, I would be very interested to hear them, as myself and other editors have provided clear, persuasive arguments as well as many clear precedents on Wikipedia to support a move. —Vera Syuzhet (talk) 16:30, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Comment. I would say the likely denouement of all of this will be the creation of a biography of Aliza Shvarts. At that point I am not sure if this article on one artwork from 2008 should even exist. We want to write about art in a way that can be understandable to anyone approaching our article(s). The biography of the artist will help to explain the artwork of 2008. And perhaps a good deal of information on the artwork of 2008 could be contained within the article on the biography of Aliza Shvarts. Bus stop (talk) 15:20, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Agreed that this seems to be the most likely and most reasonable conclusion. I have drafted a biography for the artist here: Draft: Aliza Shvarts. –Vera Syuzhet (talk) 15:30, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
It looks good and i am glad that you are taking the initiative and expending the effort to create the article. Bus stop (talk) 23:11, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
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