Marni Kotak’s “Birth of Baby X”
Beginning October 8, Kotak will transform Microscope into her home birthing room, complete with her grandmother’s bed, and her old rocking chair. The exhibit has been orchestrated around Kotak’s official due date. Visitors should be prepared to find themselves suddenly as witnesses to a live birth.
Performance artist Marni Kotak is engaging in some extreme (and literal) navel-gazing as she invites people to watch her give birth in an art gallery. “I hope that people will see that human life itself is the most profound work of art,” she says, “and that therefore giving birth, the greatest expression of life, is the highest form of art.” Which, taken a step further, could make for some good yo momma jokes: Yo momma’s such a bad artist, which is why you are ugly / If yo momma was an artist, and she is — all mommas are — she would be like Thomas Kinkade, the painter of light, and no one likes him. But his paintings are admittedly kind of luminous! Thus, you are lovely in your own way.