I didn’t want to post this picture of Daniel Edwards’ “Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston”, currently on display at Brooklyn’s Capla Kesting Fine Art gallery. Honestly, I didn’t.

But this sculpted likeness of a nude and pregnant Britney Spears, which is causing the predictable stir, just would not leave my mind. Maybe it was the puzzling inclusion of the bearskin rug. Or my curiosity about just how much anatomical detail was included on the backside, i.e. “action”, portion of this sculpture…

By the time evening fell, I was practically compelled to upload it. And so I did.

I get a kick out of Edwards’ apparently non-ironic intentions:

Edwards, whose sculpture of Ted Williams’ decapitated head — which was frozen in the hope that medical science could one day revive the baseball great — stirred up an artistic storm, said the sculpture of Spears was a “new take on pro-life.”

“Pro-lifers normally promote bloody images of abortion. This is the image of birth,” he said.

When Edwards was asked why he creates art that generates publicity by selecting subjects hyped in the media, he said: “You’re bombarded with these stories. And there’s a thread that winds back to the art. That’s not a bad thing. People are interested in these topics, and it works for art as well.”

If it’s really a genuine demonstration of pro-life support, it’s avant-garde enough to make the mainstream anti-abortionists nerve-wrackingly suspicious. So if nothing else, Edwards has accomplished that.