Andres Serrano’s “Immersion (Piss Christ)”
From a series of photographs that Serrano
took in 1987 of several classical statuettes immersed in different liquids; milk, blood, urine.
It is
a 60 x 40 inch Cibachrome print, “A darkly beautiful photographic image...the
small wood and plastic crucifix becomes virtually monumental as it floats, photographically
enlarged, in a deep rosy glow that is both ominous and glorious”
It caused immense controversy. It won
a competition sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts but Catholics
were outraged, Serrano himself received death threats and lost grants, and in
Australia it was vandalized after The Archbishop of Melbourne lost an injunction
in court to restrain the National Gallery of Victoria from showing it.
An art critic and Catholic nun, Sister
Wendy Beckett, stated that it was not blasphemous, it was “What we have
done to Christ”, the way contemporary society came to regard him and the values
he represents. Serrano himself said that
the Piece was not intended to denounce religion but alludes to the
commercializing or cheapening of Christian icons in contemporary culture. The issue
is that if he had not mentioned the urine nobody would have cared about the
picture. There goes FREEDOM OF SPEECH...
