Performance artist Marni Kotak, age 36, gave birth inside a New York City art gallery October 25, 2011. This is not a “couldn’t get to the hospital in time” story. Kotak actually arranged to deliver her baby at the Microscope Gallery in Brooklyn, asserting that giving birth “is the highest form of art.” Jewish tradition would not agree. Giving birth is a “daily miracle” but it is not art. Aside from being an example of the confusion of categories that is characteristic of much in contemporary life, it is also an example of making public what ought to be a very private and personal experience. Kotak named her nine pound two ounce baby Ajax. I do not know whether it was a boy or girl.
