The contention that art is pornography is being put forth — to me — from people in Russia. I see lots and lots of Russian art. It is profoundly insightful. The stuff there can be deep and resonant. Most of the people who email me have no idea what art is because no one does. But when someone is attempting to address personal issues, often, those human issues might have something to do with sex. This has gotten people riled up as long as there has been people on the planet. If some kid is creating a video-based exploration of what he feels is his sexuality and he has questions around his own behavior and he delves down pretty deep into that dirt, my job is not to walk on by. I might embrace him. It is an option. I might embrace his art. I might even post it. These are all options. I know the voice of censorship. I am intimately acquainted with it. The video that the moral people (Russia is just the loudest) object to has a sex worker questioning his role in sex work (he says he hates it), and the way I see it is that — like Piss Christ — there’s bodily fluids going on here and oral sex. I had this flashback to Dante and all the art that depicts the tortures of hell. This video was crossing the River Styx. I am absolutely committed to the idea that Piss Christ has touched the psyche of artists around the world. It has always been controversial. This from the Guardian.
Piss Christ – a photograph that has attracted controversy for more than two decades – has gone on display in New York, at an exhibition which surveys 25 years of the artist Andres Serrano’s work.
In 1989, the 60x40in red and yellow photograph of a crucifix plunged into a vat of Serrano’s urine ignited a congressional debate on US public arts funding; in France last year, it was physically attacked. In midtown Manhattan on Thursday night, a small group of Catholics opposed to the work gathered outside the Edward Tyler Nahem gallery, where the exhibition opened.
“At the time I made Piss Christ, I wasn’t trying to get anything across,” Serrano told the Guardian. “In hindsight, I’d say Piss Christ is a reflection of my work, not only as an artist, but as a Christian.”
Some Christians find the work deeply offensive. Anger towards the photograph hit a pinnacle on Palm Sunday 2011 when French Catholic fundamentalists attacked and destroyed the photograph with hammers. Serrano’s photograph of a meditating nun was also damaged in the attack.
“The thing about the crucifix itself is that we treat it almost like a fashion accessory. When you see it, you’re not horrified by it at all, but what it represents is the crucifixion of a man,” Serrano told the Guardian. “And for Christ to have been crucified and laid on the cross for three days where he not only bled to death, he shat himself and he peed himself to death."
“So if Piss Christ upsets you, maybe it’s a good thing to think about what happened on the cross.”
Before the new exhibition opened – it features another photo from the original series of four – members of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in the United States stood outside the building to explain their opposition.
Bill Donohue, who has been president of the Catholic League since 1993, believes that the Obama administration has given anti-Muslim imagery like the controversial Innocence of Muslims film unfair protection.
“I would argue that ethics should dictate that you don’t go around gratuitously and intentionally insulting people of faith,” Donohue told the Guardian. “I don’t care whether you’re Muslim or Jewish or Catholic or whatever you might be.”
In 2010, Donohue and the Catholic League led a successful attempt to remove from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington an art film "A Fire In My Belly" by the artist David Wojnarowicz, about AIDS, that included an 11-video clip of Jesus on the cross being eaten by ants.
On Thursday in New York, the members of the Catholic League dispersed after getting into an argument with security. They were eventually replaced by three counter-protesters – two dressed as nuns – who were in favour of Piss Christ.
The exhibition will be on display through 26 October at the private Edward Tyler Nahem gallery. Serrano’s next project includes a large book of photographs of Cuba, where his mother was raised.
