October 26, 2011

"Marni Kotak, an artist whose plans to give birth in a New York gallery as an act of performance art provoked criticism and concern..."

"... delivered a healthy baby boy Tuesday. Kotak, 36, gave birth to baby Ajax, weighing nine pounds and two ounces at 21 inches at 10:17 a.m., before an audience in a home birthing center she constructed at the Microscope Gallery. The gallery did not disclose how many people were present for the birth."
"The beautiful baby boy was wide-eyed, and as quiet as could be, staring blankly into the camera and video lenses that hovered above him."
Get used to it, Ajax, old man. This is the future you've arrived into. Staring blankly into lenses that hover ever about.

ADDED: When your last name sounds like a sanitary napkin, why not have a first name that sounds like scouring powder? The dirty and the clean! And it's all commercial.

39 comments:

cubanbob said...

Unbelievable. What a narcissist. I have yet to see a 'performance' artist that wasn't a bullshit artist. Poor kid having such parents. The Navy requires its nuke submarine captains be certified sane, perhaps prospective parents ought to be required to be sane and capable of being self supporting.

madAsHell said...

Ajax has an older brother named Comet, and a sister named Kleenex.

coketown said...

Other components of the exhibit include a 10-foot-tall trophy for Baby X “for being born,”

A trophy for being born. He'll fit right in with the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

YoungHegelian said...

Telamonian Ajax or the Lesser?

Inquiring old pedant minds want to know!

May God have mercy on this child. He'll need it.

Ron said...

"Meh", said Brillo Tampon, "been there, done that."

Anonymous said...

Strange name. Mighty warrior, but he decided to fall on his sword, literally, because he lost the "win Achilles's magic armor" contest to Odysseus. DAMMIT! I WANTED THAT SHINY ARMOR.

No wonder the name Ajax is largely relegated to cleaning products.

Anonymous said...

Ajax Kotak- with a name like that, there's only one career path:

supervillain.

MayBee said...

Should have gone with Comet Kotak.

Chip Ahoy said...

Were cousin Clorox and aunt Lysol in attendance?

The Crack Emcee said...

This speaks to the sheer vapidity of "performance art."

Dude, your mom's a real talent - on her back.

KCFleming said...

So I gather that the definition of "art" now merely requires an announcement and an audience.

Triumph of the Swill.

Henry said...

At least she didn't name him Oedipus.

Robert Pearson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Henry said...

So I gather that the definition of "art" now merely requires an announcement and an audience.

It's been that way for a really long time.

P.T.Barnum was an artist.

Someone should tell Ms. Kotak's audience that This Way to the Egress has already been done.

Robert Pearson said...

Maybe one could get paid for making the baby in front of a gallery crowd.

This used to be called "pornography" but it is truly the instantiation of the next generation of Occupiers.

traditionalguy said...

Celebrate! Another natural born American is among us.

Henry said...

The problem with "performance art" is how studiously it avoids the word "theater". Theater is a word that indicates a history and technique, and audience. There's something rotten in the state of your art if you start by being bush league.

Sorun said...

Next art project for Marni Kotak: Plaster molds of her hemorrhoids.

If you missed the live performance, here's a old video of a birth -- watch the second one titled:
"lady giving birth."

It looks like the nurse used a scissors to cut off the baby's nose so it'd fit through the birth canal. Gross.

ricpic said...

She can call it performance art all she wants. Maybe the thrill is in transgressing. See, I've taken the sacred private and made it blatant public. A violation. That's the thrill.

Curious George said...

"her artist-painter husband Jason Robert Bell"

For the kid's sake I hope the painting part means "houses"

Psychedelic George said...

Kotak!

Who loves ya, baby!

Give that kid a lollipop

John Burgess said...

Come on now! You're excessively harshing on all the non-breeders who will never have the chance--absent this event--of partaking in a birth event.

Robert Pearson said...

ricpic: See, I've taken the sacred private and made it blatant public. A violation. That's the thrill.

Yes. And that was the thrill of porn back in the good ol' days, before it went on cable.

Toad Trend said...

The ghost of PT Barnum echoes on...

'Sucker' Kotex plopped out in front of a fawning audience.

That there was an audience indicates much larger problems.

wv - ingrate

Yes, count me in, please.

Psychedelic George said...

Actually, PT Barnum never said the "sucker" quote.

His competitor did.

Barnum even wrote a book "The Art of Money Getting" which would have made Horatio Alger proud. Its chapter headings includes such thoughts as "Avoid debt....Perservere...Don't get above your business...Use the best tools...Don't endorse without security...Learn something useful."

Boingboing had the story yesterday.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

The kid's dad is named Jason Robert Bell. So the kid will either be Ajax Bell or Ajax Kotak-Bell. One sounds like an Offensive lineman, the others is a guaranteed beatdown.


I'm betting he changes it the day he turns 18.

Toad Trend said...

Psychedelic George

Ha! Great story. Better if true. Thanks for sharing.

Sounds like Barnum's book had some sound advice.

WV - phitya

If you've laid off the desserts the pants might phitya.

Toad Trend said...

One sounds like an Offensive lineman, the others is a guaranteed beatdown.

Yes. With the slashes it is interesting - to see certain women insist on using the maiden.

Theories?

wv -sockest

I couldn't remove the bolst because I didn't have the correct sockest.

Ralph L said...

There's something rotten in the state of your art if you start by being bush league
Ironrails will tell you there's a 95% chance that she isn't.

Save your pity for her next child, SoftScrub.

edutcher said...

I always thought the term, performance artist, was another way of saying, "Weird".

Titus said...

I want to pinch a loaf as part of a performance art piece.

Then everyone attending will be able to look in the bowl and inspect my loaves.

The game will be them trying to figure out what I ate.

David said...

Ha! Made us look.

Foose said...

Possibly doubly dirty, since in the Renaissance the name "Ajax" provoked much hilarity among the groundlings watching Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, as the name was a homonym of "a jakes," i.e., a toilet.

Chip S. said...

Should've named the kid Eastman.

Anonymous said...

I plan on a performance art performance of middle-aged guys hanging around, watching football and drinking some brews.

Tickets are on sale for $400 each. I hope the first show is at the Guggenheim.

Thank you.

...

No seriously. Thank you. Really really really thank you.

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wince said...

Oh geeez, Edith, another member of the "creative class".

She can now take Ajax down to OWS.

And they do need Ajax at OWS.

Meanwhile, I predict her son has a promising career and will love his mother's terrific Sweedish Meatballs.

n.n said...

Devaluation of human life. There is a diminishing respect for individual dignity when procreation is regarded as a performing art.

Well, it could be worse. She could have performed an abortion. If we are ever disposable, then we are always disposable, and the value of human life is progressively suspect.

I have often wondered the mentality of individuals who managed to rationalize the worst excesses of the 20th century. Especially the widespread and progressive destruction wreaked by Marxists, communists, socialists, fascists, and others who seek to consolidate capital and power through authority.

This is interesting. The more I observe the pattern of regression in our society, in our world, the more I accept social conservative principles, which happen to be compatible with both the natural and enlightened orders.

Sydney said...

Next art project for Marni Kotak: Plaster molds of her hemorrhoids.

When I was in medical school we had an elderly former Nobel prize winner in medicine come to give us a lecture. We were all so excited. But he ended up showing us pictures of his hemorrhoids. Kid you not. It was his current "research project." Watching and measuring his hemorrhoids in relation to his personal stress. I think it is safe to say that no one who graduated from medical school in my class has any respect now for Nobel prize winners.