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Lot Essay
"I do not propose that Congress 'censor' artists. I do propose that Congress put an end to the use of federal funds to support outrageous 'art' that is clearly designed to poison our culture."
-- Senator Jesse Helms as quoted in "It's the Job of Congress to Define What's Art," USA Today, September 1989.
Title ignored, Andres Serrano's most seminal work to date portrays a monumental crucifix emerging majestically from enveloping fields of velvety blacks, heated reds and warm yellows. While the impressive form hovers solemnly over viewers it is also apparent that it is submerged, a fact indicated by tiny air bubbles that cling to Christ's body, a quality that affords the photograph a palpable quiet, like that experienced when under water or when alone with oneself in a hushed place of worship. As such, the work very successfully recalls the profound power of the imagery which has served to call the masses to concerted prayer for hundreds of years and which has been a primary source of artistic inspiration and creation throughout art history.
Raised by devout Catholic parents, Serrano was first drawn to art while frequenting the Renaissance paintings galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Excited by the period's resonating symbolic language, Serrano adopted its lexicon and began translating many of its central themes - struggle, triumph, temptation, memento mori and salvation - through his contemporary lense. Piss Christ (1987), the artist has said, was first and foremost a formal exercise, exploring the relationship between color and shape, two-dimensions and three-dimensions, centered about an instantly recognizable, almost Pop, visual icon. Its composition, created by placing a plastic souvenir crucifix in a vat of the artist's urine, was meant to humanize a super-human figure and belief, to explore the idea of religion as an extension of our day-to-day, of our common, base experience. This assertion of the abject grounded the work alongside much of the concurrent work of Serrano's peers but its polemical juxtaposition with religion, combined with Serrano's status as an artist who had won a fellowship from the Awards in the Visual Arts program which was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, thrust the photograph into the heart of the vehement Culture War debates of the late 1980s.
In May of 1989, Senator Alphonse D'Amato tore a copy of Serrano's Piss Christ to shreds on the Senate floor while arguing against the NEA's support of art which he considered obscene. Together with Senator Jessie Helms he was successful in passing legislation restricting government funding for the NEA, effectively limiting the body's ability to support challenging artwork and significantly threatening such art's visibility in important exhibitions and museums, a fact demonstrated by the crippling of the controversial show Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, traveling the country in 1990. Clashes between conservative politicians and organizations and artists and their supporters have ensued since, as demonstrated by the furor surrounding the Sensation exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1999.
Despite Serrano's consistent stance that his work has no political undertones or import, Piss Christ effectively conjures a long, shared history and challenges it with post-modern concerns, a quality that continues to stir visceral emotional responses. In 1997 the photograph was repeatedly assaulted while on display at The National Gallery of Victoria in Australia, forcing the closure of the exhibition. As recently as April 2011 an example included in the show Je crois aux miracles presented in Avignon, France, inspired a 1,000-person protest march through the city and on Palm Sunday the photograph was vandalized beyond repair. Enduring such a turbulent existence, the work has become emblematic of the complex and challenging questions surrounding freedom of images and speech. Piss Christ is a primary example of art's capacity to ignite passionate and frenzied debate about the essentials of right and wrong and to its ability to affect real change, both negative and positive, in society at large. Serrano's Piss Christ stands as a vital symbol of the power of images to provoke the definition of the avant-garde as that which challenges the viewer's inherent cultural conventions, thereby revealing an aspect of perception in an uncomfortably bright light.
-- Senator Jesse Helms as quoted in "It's the Job of Congress to Define What's Art," USA Today, September 1989.
Title ignored, Andres Serrano's most seminal work to date portrays a monumental crucifix emerging majestically from enveloping fields of velvety blacks, heated reds and warm yellows. While the impressive form hovers solemnly over viewers it is also apparent that it is submerged, a fact indicated by tiny air bubbles that cling to Christ's body, a quality that affords the photograph a palpable quiet, like that experienced when under water or when alone with oneself in a hushed place of worship. As such, the work very successfully recalls the profound power of the imagery which has served to call the masses to concerted prayer for hundreds of years and which has been a primary source of artistic inspiration and creation throughout art history.
Raised by devout Catholic parents, Serrano was first drawn to art while frequenting the Renaissance paintings galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Excited by the period's resonating symbolic language, Serrano adopted its lexicon and began translating many of its central themes - struggle, triumph, temptation, memento mori and salvation - through his contemporary lense. Piss Christ (1987), the artist has said, was first and foremost a formal exercise, exploring the relationship between color and shape, two-dimensions and three-dimensions, centered about an instantly recognizable, almost Pop, visual icon. Its composition, created by placing a plastic souvenir crucifix in a vat of the artist's urine, was meant to humanize a super-human figure and belief, to explore the idea of religion as an extension of our day-to-day, of our common, base experience. This assertion of the abject grounded the work alongside much of the concurrent work of Serrano's peers but its polemical juxtaposition with religion, combined with Serrano's status as an artist who had won a fellowship from the Awards in the Visual Arts program which was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, thrust the photograph into the heart of the vehement Culture War debates of the late 1980s.
In May of 1989, Senator Alphonse D'Amato tore a copy of Serrano's Piss Christ to shreds on the Senate floor while arguing against the NEA's support of art which he considered obscene. Together with Senator Jessie Helms he was successful in passing legislation restricting government funding for the NEA, effectively limiting the body's ability to support challenging artwork and significantly threatening such art's visibility in important exhibitions and museums, a fact demonstrated by the crippling of the controversial show Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, traveling the country in 1990. Clashes between conservative politicians and organizations and artists and their supporters have ensued since, as demonstrated by the furor surrounding the Sensation exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1999.
Despite Serrano's consistent stance that his work has no political undertones or import, Piss Christ effectively conjures a long, shared history and challenges it with post-modern concerns, a quality that continues to stir visceral emotional responses. In 1997 the photograph was repeatedly assaulted while on display at The National Gallery of Victoria in Australia, forcing the closure of the exhibition. As recently as April 2011 an example included in the show Je crois aux miracles presented in Avignon, France, inspired a 1,000-person protest march through the city and on Palm Sunday the photograph was vandalized beyond repair. Enduring such a turbulent existence, the work has become emblematic of the complex and challenging questions surrounding freedom of images and speech. Piss Christ is a primary example of art's capacity to ignite passionate and frenzied debate about the essentials of right and wrong and to its ability to affect real change, both negative and positive, in society at large. Serrano's Piss Christ stands as a vital symbol of the power of images to provoke the definition of the avant-garde as that which challenges the viewer's inherent cultural conventions, thereby revealing an aspect of perception in an uncomfortably bright light.