Nothing artistic about child birth

Of all human activities, you'd think the least delightful to observe would likely be death, followed closely by childbirth.

I'm not saying they can't be artistic. But as a veteran of three birth events, I don't believe it.

The first time, granted, you have illusions.

You may have read the books and done the classes. You may have massaged parts of you that you never knew existed in preparation for the event.

And you may, as I once did, opt for a home birth.

At those classes you may find yourself listening to tape recordings of other peoples' birth noises. They are not melodic.

With grim amusement I recall the inevitable rush to hospital, the joy of an epidural, and the very surgical intervention I'd sought to avoid. From this I learned that you can't predict the agonising process - just as you can't predict the course of the many other humbling processes between your own birth and death.

They happen. You hang on tight to whatever's near at hand, and you somehow get through it. Or maybe you don't.

By the time you read this a woman in New York will quite likely have given birth before an audience of "hipsters, critics and cogniscenti," as a news report put it.

The artist involved, Marni Kotak, is in the habit of offering up intimate aspects of her life, like news of her husband's impressive lovemaking, to public gaze, so this is a logical development.

You do not need paints and brushes for such an art piece, but you do need props.

The Microscope Gallery, where a birthing pool stands ready for her performance piece, is billing this as Kotak's "most profound and physically challenging" to date.

She modestly calls it the highest form of art.

The baby will be dipped in soil after birth, incidentally, because she says that's what Texans do.

Something tells me this would be the artist's first performance of this kind. Call it a wild intuition.

I remember well the calm reasonableness of the books I read on natural childbirth, birthing pools optional, recipes for cooking the placenta included.

How soothingly they described a process which, some assured you, need not involve pain at all, and was a reflection on your character if it did. Some birthing gurus said giving birth was orgasmic.

They had pretty obviously not been around.

Setting aside the exhibitionist aspect of this New York art work, which is surely the priority, you have to hope there's a backup plan.

Modern medicine is a marvel, but women die giving birth every day, and to have birth and death events coinciding may exceed the artist's intention.

The risk of surgical intervention is high, especially in America, and even in America, babies sometimes don't make it.

Birth is many things, but mainly it's risky and not at all like it is on TV and in the movies, when women moan a bit, then deliver a baby a couple of minutes later, their lipstick intact.

It can be grim, actually, and painful, and I'm not sure that critics, cogniscenti and hipsters would fully appreciate that level of reality.

What if the audience yawns? What if they mis-time their applause?

What if there's - like - blood and yucky stuff?

The artist's next plan is to make of the child's life, until it becomes independent, an ongoing art work called "Raising Baby X."

She outlines a kind of Truman Show where the child's personal boundaries will be invaded and opened up for the entertainment of strangers via the one person who ought to shield it from possible harm - in the name of art.

Someone needs to tell this woman that it's one thing to choose to expose your private life - and private parts - in the name of whatever, but quite another to insist that your child, who has no choice in the matter, does the same.

Art can be bizarre, it can challenge boundaries, it may break all imaginable rules - but when it has the potential to harm a real person, it becomes something else.

In this case I'd call it child abuse.