Fertility in the Age of A.R.T.

Baby Monitor

Birth Control

O Brave New World

Child-less

Cost of A.R.T.

Eggs & Age

Embryonic

This is Not a Baby

Overpopulation Myth

Time to Procreate

Sex Selection

Sperm & Age

Surrogacy

Swimmers

Virility

Where Babies Come From

Your Better Half

Fertility in the Age of A.R.T.

Fertility in the Age of A.R.T. (Assisted Reproductive Technology) examines the current discourse in micro-managed procreation. How do wealth, race, age, and sexual identity determine one’s place in this 21st century fertility ritual? Like magic, pulling a sonogram out of one’s wallet transforms a fetus into a baby. Seven-foot tall plywood storks sprout from the lawns of suburbia, boasting of successful procreation. Ads in college newspapers entice egg-producing coeds to sell their well-educated ova. Men’s sperm are extracted, tested, sorted, frozen, thawed, injected, rejected, sold by the vial, and—on a recent German reality television show—raced in organized competition. The sheer volume of fertility-related images, advertisements, news items, and self-help books evidence a peculiar and powerful alchemy of culture, nature, and technology.

Fertility in the Age of A.R.T. wryly combines photographs and text in order to reveal the clashing perspectives on contemporary fertility issues. Nature, culture, and technology are represented by images of a virile bull, Easter eggs, sonograms, superheroes, and artistic allusions to human anatomy via plant life. The technology of A.R.T. is visually referenced to images found in gourmet cookbooks by exploiting the obvious connection between human ova and chicken eggs. Textual citations from novels, health books, government reports, and advertisements ground the images in the contradictory rhetoric surrounding human reproduction. Each of the photo and text artworks in this project is a triptych printed on a single sheet of Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper.

Idealized as a natural result of love and desire, procreation is often manipulated by medical, social, legal, and political institutions. Fertility in the Age of A.R.T. uses humor and juxtaposition to consider this system that purports to produce better babies for worthier parents.

Purchase Fertility in the Age of A.R.T.

The photographs in this series are captured digitally and presented as archival pigment prints in editions of 10. Print sizes include 15 x 30” and 20 x 40". Prices range from $900 to $2,000. Contact Jeanette May directly to inquire about purchase or exhibition.