Essay about Pis* Christ

Freedom and Respect

Pis* Christ is a controversial photograph by armature photographer, Andres Serrano who immersed a crucifix and Jesus Christ's body plastic statue in glass of his urine. As long as he used Jesus statue to portray his art in a glass of urine, arguments started at Christian's communities immediately and caused a scandal when it was exhibited in 1989. In contrast, some liberal defenders called him a liberal artist and insist the freedom of expression. Respect to the other religions and beliefs that people interest is important but it should not be extremism like some of Muslim countries, which an artist cannot talk about the prophet or even have an opinion about holly book. This controversy art offended Christians and irreverence their beliefs by using Jesus Christ's statue and by mentioning that the best place for Pis* Christ is in church. Many of Christians believes that Pis* Christ is blasphemy and should not be displayed in public again.

Andres Serrano (born in , 1950) dropped out at high school to become an artist at age 15 and attended to Brooklyn Museum of Art School. After several years, he was interested in photography by his own way and the first images Serrano created were tableaux incorporating religious iconography, dead animals, raw meat and human subjects, amongst other elements. He was strongly interesting to use the blood in his works. Along with blood, he started to use urine, milk, and later semen on his objects and produced two series of Body Fluids' and 'Immersions' from 1985-90. In other works, he photographed dead bodies mutilated ('Morgue', 1992) but accost with art viewers. The point of view that Andres Serrano has:

"I have always felt that my work is religious, not sacrilegious. I would say that there are many individuals in the Church who appreciate it and who do not have a problem with it. The best place for Pis* Christ is in a church. In fact, I recently had a show in in an actual church that also functions as an exhibition space, and the work looked great there. I think if the is smart, someday they'll collect my work" Andres Serrano said in his interview.



Serrano usually tends to print his photographs about 20 by 10 inches. The Pis* Christ photograph printed on 1987 with 23.5 inches height and 16 inches width, exhibited in 1989 . The piece won the award in Visual Arts of the Southern Center for Contemporary Art's. The viewer can see oxygen's bubbles inside the urine glass because Serrano took the photo close up and he fed the crucifix with different bright to make it more shiny.

The issue goes to the most churches and Christians considered it blasphemous when Senator Alphonse D'Amato showed the copy of Pis* Christ in the chambers of the United States Senate on May 18, 1989 and called it a symbol of the excesses of liberalism. Not only the work was controversy in United States, but also in other Christian countries like Australia, people called it a striking piece. In contrast, many of people called it freedom of expression and believed that nobody cannot limit an artist in art.