Brooklyn Performance Artist Turns Childbirth into an Exhibit

And to top it off James Franco will be making a cameo appearance as the midwife. Just kidding, I hope.

The wonderful world of performance art appears to be getting stranger and more bizarre by the minute. The most cutting edge genre of the art world is also the most controversial and unpredictable. Some of the well-known recent exhibits include naked people standing in doorways, Marina Abramović having staring contests in MoMa and whatever James Franco is squeezing in between his T.S. Elliot and Milton classes.

It appears as though just about anything could be considered performance art at this point, from yelling obscenities at strangers to shitting in a glass toilet. It’s a world I don’t particularly understand. I find many of the exhibitions to be odd, and sometimes lacking any decipherable artistic merit. Most of the time it appears to be simply an attempt at shock value.

Brooklyn performance artist Marni Kotak’s newest exhibit may have pushed the envelope a little further as her month-long exhibit will feature her giving birth to a child. Yep, the beauty of childbirth in all its glory, in the presence of a live studio audience and complete with complimentary hors d’oeuvres and champagne.

Salon writer Mary Elizabeth Williams noted that Kotak has converted part her gallery into a birthing room and a midwife would be on hand for the actual birth, however Williams also pointed out the strange and disconcerting disconnect between Kotak and her upcoming child.

It would be marvelous if Kotak’s birth goes off without a hitch, and her experiment somehow becomes a moving and beautiful moment for all those who share it. But Kotak sure seems hopelessly naive and chillingly disconnected from her own child when she says that the focus of birth “provides for the most authentic performance art situation … And the ultimate creation of this life performance will be a living being!” Even more unnervingly, her gallery promises, “The exhibit also launches Kotak’s new conceptual work Raising Baby X in which she re-contextualizes the everyday act of raising a child into a work of performance art, reaching out to collectors, private investors and foundations for their support.” In other words, her yet unborn baby — the one with the generic brand name “X” — has already been drafted into service as part of her career.

I already feel tremendously bad for this child, who seemingly will have no hope to enjoy a simply normal childhood. I understand most parents have plans for their children before they’re born, such as what sports they play or where they’ll go to school. It’s one thing to make a private moment like the birth of a child public, but to make that same child’s upbringing a work or conceptual art just seems cold.

Kotak explains in a Village Voice interview that goal is to show people to experience life instead of wasting their time on social media websites like Facebook. Kotak might even be purposefully ironic in her own over-sharing by making a live show out of her child’s birth.

Whatever her purpose or goal, you can catch “The Birth of Baby X” at the Microscope Gallary in Bushwick — for a limited time only. After seeing the birthing scene in “Knocked Up” a couple times I think I’ve already got the gist of what’s gonna happen.

[Salon]