Anonymous Artist Creates Online Defense of "Piss Christ"

REPORTAGE

AUSTRALIA - An anonymous artist has protested the destruction of Andres Serrano’s infamous photograph Immersion "Piss Christ" (1987) by distributing their own interpretation called The Resurrection of Piss Christ online. Launched on Easter Sunday, the artist has offered the image for download at resurrectionofpisschrist.com and encourages the public to republish, reuse and re-purpose the image as they wish. Unlike Serrano, who used his piece to make a profit and gain notoriety, the artist wishes for the work to rise above petty incentives and to spread as a protest against those who threaten free speech. [link]

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"Piss Christ" and Other Holy Week Controversies

WITHOUT CONTROVERSY how would we know it was Holy Week? This year offered a feast of religious art controversies. A group of Christians in France attacked Andres Serrano's controversial work, "Piss Christ." Michigan Pastor Rob Bell's artist-inspired book, "Love Wins" continued to infuriate Christian Fundamentalists; and there was even a new mural in Utah of the Mormon Temple in flames stirring up debate. It all makes the 2007 advice on PBS Bill Moyers by Nun & Art Historian Sister Wendy Beckett even more prescient when she advised, (I'm paraphrasing) Art is what you make of it. What you bring to it is how you will experience it. Thank you Sister Wendy for providing some perspective for Holy Week art controversy.

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Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" Destroyed by French Protesters

THE GUARDIAN
By Angelique Chrisafis

Andres Serrano's Piss Christ has been destroyed by Christian protesters
who broke into a gallery in Avignon, France, and slashed the photograph

FRANCE - The controversial work "Piss Christ" by the New York photographer Andres Serrano has been destroyed at a gallery in France after weeks of protests. The photograph, which shows a small crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's urine, outraged the US religious right in 1987, when it was first shown, with Serrano denounced in the Senate by the Republican Jesse Helms. It was later vandalised in Australia, and neo-Nazis ransacked a show by the artist in Sweden in 2007. The work has previously been shown without incident in France, but for the past two weeks Catholic groups have campaigned against it, culminating in hundreds of people marching through Avignon on Saturday in protest. [link]

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"Piss Christ" Creator, Serrano at Phoenix Art Museum Tonight

PHOENIX NEW TIMES
April 12, 2011

"Piss Christ"

ARIZONA - Andres Serrano, best known for his infamous 1989 work Piss Christ (consisting of a photograph depicting a plastic crucifix floating in a two-gallon jar of his own urine) is visiting PAM for a special lecture and discussion with world-renowned artist (and Valley native) Eric Fischl in the museum's Whiteman Hall on April 13. The artist's strict Catholic upbringing in New York City by his Honduran mother and Cuban father imbued his early work with religious overtones, particularly Piss Christ. Although the artist admits to a fascination with the profane and repulsive nature of bodily fluids (as well as taboo imagery in general), the work is more than just the blasphemous act of placing a religious icon in an utterly foul substance. It contains allusions toward Serrano's feelings about the commercialization of Christian iconography and his conflicted feelings about his own beliefs. Another work from that era is Heaven and Hell, a photograph depicting a smirking priest ignoring a bound and blood-soaked nude woman. In a 1991 interview with High Performance Magazine, the artist explained his belief that his work, while religious, isn't sacrilegious. "I am drawn to Christ but I have real problems with the Catholic Church. I don't go out of my way to be critical of the Church in my work, because I think that I make icons worthy of the Church." [link]

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