An Easter Reflection on One Particular Crucifix

Andres Serrano's famous photograph Piss Christ was destroyed last weekend in Avignon. Here is the Washington Post's coverage of the vandalism of this art work by angered French Catholics. I thought I'd take this occasion to remind us of the history of this photograph and the controversy it faced. This is a selection from my book Legislating Creativity:

Piss Christ on the Senate Floor

The late 1980s was a time of controversy. In film, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ had incited outrage from many Christians by depicting Jesus in a sexual relationship. A number of scandals plagued the music world, perhaps bolstering sales along the way. Madonna released the video for her song “Like a Prayer” in April of 1989, just as Pepsi released a commercial featuring the song and its singer. But the video, showing Madonna bearing signs of the stigmata, kissing a Black Christ figure, and dancing in lingerie in a church, upset many Christian organizations, including the Vatican. Later in the year, the hip-hop group 2 Live Crew would face legal battles and obscenity charges for their album As Nasty as They Wanna Be, and subsequent performances in Florida.

The Reverend Donald Wildmon used his leverage as founder and head of the American Family Association (AFA) to convince Pepsi to pull the controversial Madonna ad, even though it included none of the contentious material from the video. Madonna walked away with the $5 million that Pepsi had promised, for a commercial that aired only once. Wildmon had threatened that his members would boycott Pepsi if the ad continued to run. Pepsi pulled the Madonna commercial on April 4, 1989. The very next day, Wildmon turned his attention to the art world with a public letter decrying Andres Serrano’s photograph Piss Christ:

"We should have known it would come to this. In a recent art exhibition displayed in several museums throughout the country, one “work of art” was a very large, vivid photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine. The work, by Andres Serrano, was titled “Piss Christ.” When asked, since he had worked with urine, what could be expected next, Mr. Serrano said, “Semen.” And, of course, defecation will follow that. The bias and bigotry against Christians, which has dominated television and movies for the past decade or more, has now moved over to the art museums."

The letter never mentions NEA funding, but that came to light soon after. Nor does the letter outline a specific agenda for addressing the writer’s concerns. It does not ask recipients to contact their politicians or the hosts of the art exhibit. Indeed, the details of the exhibit are not even mentioned. Effectively, the letter laid the groundwork for Wildmon and the AFA to set their sights on the arts. Wildmon’s attention had, until then, been focused on television and other forms of commercial culture—including Madonna’s Pepsi commercial and The Last Temptation of Christ. After several years as a Methodist minister, Wildmon left the clergy in 1977 to start the National Federation for Decency. Later renamed the American Family Association, this organization targets whatever it deems as morally offensive, as well as anti-religious content in the media. The art world was a new target for Wildmon’s criticism, and the letter above announced that shift in focus. But in the coming weeks, Wildmon’s agenda became clear: to sanitize the arts through an attack on the NEA. Wildmon’s letter was addressed to AFA members, but copies were circulated to members of congress and President Bush.

Andres Serrano, born in 1950, is an American photographer of Cuban and Honduran ancestry. His photographs in the early 1980s made heavy use of flesh—carcasses of fish, chickens, cows, and coyotes—as well as fluids such as milk and blood. Piss Christ was made in 1987, as Serrano began adding urine to his palette of blood and milk, and is one of a series that includes Piss Pope and Piss Satan. The series is entitled Immersions. Piss Christ depicts a crucifix submerged in a yellow liquid. The photograph is large (60” X 40”), but apart from the yellow tinge of the liquid, nothing in the image indicates the presence of urine. However, the title helps to affirm the association.

As with most works of art, Piss Christ allows for many interpretations. The availability of multiple interpretations—rather than one established reading—can stem from two sources. First, an artwork can be imbued with a degree of open-endedness, leaving room within the content for multiple interpretations. Second, a work’s placement in time, space, and social structure may give it multiple audiences, each of which will find a distinctive meaning as a result of the unique experiences and values its members bring to the encounter.

Consider the following interpretations of Piss Christ:

• The photograph is a critique of capitalism which has extended the commodification process into religion by selling cheap tiny crucifixes. Placing the crucifix in urine stands as a commentary on capitalism.
• The photograph is devotional. Serrano is exploring his faith through the iconography of the church and excretions of his body. Christian scripture declares the body to be a temple to God and also states that the kingdom of God is “within you.” Given that, urine might then be seen as holy water.
• The photograph is an attack on the church and the artist is literally urinating on Jesus, invoking both religious freedom and freedom of expression.
• The photograph is an art exercise, a reinterpretation of the common crucifix scene, as depicted in religious art since the Middle Ages. Urine is present not as a commentary, but only for the luminosity it gives the image.

This is just a handful of broad interpretations. Others are possible, and we can find further variations by discussing more specific components of the image. Serrano has been fairly quiet about the image, although he reminds us to be sensitive to the complexity of interpretation:

"You can’t say it is anti-Christian bigotry and ignore the fact that this person was once a Catholic, had a Catholic upbringing, has worked a lot with Christian imagery in the past, and as an artist feels very much aligned to other artists who have worked with Christian imagery consistently, such as Goya or Luis Bunuel and many others."

At any rate, it is problematic to reduce artistic images to language, which frequently happens in the interpretive process. My point is simply to say that, as we proceed, we need to recognize that any one particular meaning of the work is by no means a given. The meanings that become the most potent are formed and selected through complex social processes that, in this case, are legal, political, religious and discursive processes, as well as aesthetic.

Piss Christ was made in 1987. In 1988, Serrano was one of several artists nominated for the Awards in the Visual Arts (AVA) program of the Southeast Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), which is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. SECCA’s AVA program, an annual awards program that began in 1981, gives 10 awards to artists representing ten regions of the country. The winning artists, chosen by a jury of art experts, receive a fellowship for work which they have completed, have a selection of works tour in an exhibit, and receive assistance in selling their work. After Serrano was selected as a winner, eight of his photographs were chosen for the AVA exhibition, which traveled to Los Angeles, CA; Pittsburgh, PA; and Richmond, VA. As a finalist, Serrano received $15,000 from SECCA. In order to run the program, SECCA received $75,000 from the NEA. It also received funding from the Equitable Life Insurance Company and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The details of how the funding came about are important. In many of the debates and media accounts that appeared after the controversy broke, the simplistic equation sometimes presented was that the NEA gave Serrano $15,000 to create Piss Christ, or that the NEA gave SECCA $15,000 for the express purpose of rewarding Serrano’s work. But the reality is that the NEA awarded SECCA a large grant to partially support its AVA program. As a part of that program’s proceedings in 1988, Serrano was nominated, reviewed by jury, and selected as a finalist—all for his previous accomplishments as an artist, which included Piss Christ. Piss Christ was then selected as one of eight of Serrano’s works to travel with the AVA exhibit, along with works by the other finalists. So there were many steps from the award of an NEA grant to the exhibition of Piss Christ, and the NEA money in question did not pay for the actual production of the photograph.

The last installation of the AVA exhibit closed in Richmond on January 29, 1989. The AFA began its attack in April, and by May, the co-sponsoring Equitable Life Insurance Company announced that it had received over 40,000 letters of complaint. The presence of AFA members on the company’s staff gave them even more reason to speedily distance themselves from the controversy. On May 18, the issue of Serrano’s relationship to NEA funds made its first of many appearances on the floor of the Senate. Prompted by Wildmon’s campaign, Alphonse D’Amato (R-NY) stepped to the podium to condemn Serrano and announce the artist’s link to the NEA:

"This so-called piece of art is a deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity. The artwork in question is a photograph of the crucifix submerged in the artist's urine.

This artist received $15,000 for his work from the National Endowment for the Arts, through the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art.

Well, if this is what contemporary art has sunk to, this level, this outrage, this indignity—some may want to sanction that, and that is fine. But not with the use of taxpayers’ money. This is not a question of free speech. This is a question of abuse of taxpayers’ money. If we allow this group of so-called art experts to get away with this, to defame us and to use our money, well, then we do not deserve to be in office.

That is why, Mr. President, I am proud of the Members, who in literally a matter of minutes—over 20, about 25—joined me in signing a strong letter of protest to the Endowment. Here is a picture, and the title is Piss Christ. Incredible.

To add insult to injury, after this group of so-called art experts picked this artist for this $15,000 prize—of taxpayers’ money; we paid for this, our taxpayers—I do not blame people for being outraged and angered, and they should be angered at us, unless we do something to change this. If this continues and if this goes unrectified, where will it end? They will say, ‘This is free speech.’ Well, if you want free speech, you want to draw dirty pictures, you want to do anything you want, that is your business, but not with taxpayers’ money. This is an outrage, and our people’s tax dollars should not support this trash, and we should not be giving it the dignity. And after this piece of trash and this artist received this award, to make matters worse, the Awards in Visual Arts, this wonderful publication was put together; and who was it financed by, partially? By none other than the National Endowment for the Arts. What a disgrace."

To his credit, D’Amato does acknowledge the role of the review panel, and the placement of SECCA as a mediating institution between the NEA and Serrano. But the arrangement of these acknowledgements has implications. The quotable lines from his speech are ‘This artist received $15,000 for his work from the National Endowment for the Arts’ and ‘This is an outrage, and our people’s tax dollars should not support this trash.’ The sound bytes made it very easy to believe that the NEA gave Serrano $15,000 with the understanding that he would use the money to photograph a crucifix dipped in urine. Note also that D’Amato assumes that an offensive interpretation is a foregone conclusion. He never actually articulates that interpretation. He does not say, “I understand this cross in this urine to mean…” or anything of the sort. He simply states a description of the work—“the crucifix submerged in the artist's urine”—and lets that stand in as justification for his characterization of the work as “a deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity.”

D’Amato’s speech continued a little longer, and then the letter that he references was added to the record. That letter was addressed to Hugh Southern, the acting chair of the NEA. The previous chair, Frank Hodsell, had resigned in February, about nine months before his appointment would have expired, to take a job in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). So it is important to keep in mind that in the first few months of the controversy surrounding the NEA, the agency itself was short-staffed and lacking a leader.

The letter read as follows:

"Dear Mr. Southern,
We recently learned of the Endowment's support for a so-called ‘work of art’ by Andres Serrano entitled ‘Piss Christ.’ We write to express our outrage and to suggest in the strongest terms that the procedures used by the Endowment to award and support artists be reformed.
The piece in question is a large and vivid photograph of Christ on a crucifix submerged in the artist's urine. This work is shocking, abhorrent and completely undeserving of any recognition whatsoever. Millions of taxpayers are rightfully incensed that their hard-earned dollars were used to honor and support Serrano’s work.

There is a clear flaw in the procedures used to select art and artists deserving of taxpayers’ support. That fact is evidenced by the Serrano work itself. Moreover, after the artist was selected and honored for his ‘contributions’ to the field of art, his work was exhibited at government expense and with the imprimatur of the Endowment.

This matter does not involve freedom of artistic expression—it does involve the question of whether American taxpayers should be forced to support such trash.

And finally, simply because the Endowment and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) did not have a direct hand in choosing Serrano's work, does not absolve either of responsibility. The fact that both the Endowment and the SECCA with taxpayer dollars promoted this work as part of the Awards in Visual Arts exhibition, is reason enough to be outraged.

We urge the Endowment to comprehensively review its procedures and determine what steps will be taken to prevent such abuses from recurring in the future.

We await your response.

Sincerely,
Alphonse D’Amato, Bob Kerrey, Warren B. Rudman, Rudy Boschwitz, Dennis DeConcini, Pete Wilson, Bob Dole, Chuck Grassley, James A. McClure, John Heinz, Wendell Ford, Howell Heflin, Harry Reid, Richard Shelby, John W. Warner, Larry Pressler, Conrad Burns, Tom Harkin, Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, John McCain, Arlen Specter, Steve Symms. (Congressional Record, 1989a)."

Looking across these names, it is worth noting that a number of Democrats and moderate Republicans are included. The critique of Piss Christ may have begun on the far right, with D’Amato and Wildmon, but it moved swiftly to the center.

After the letter was added to the record, Senator Jesse Helms stood to add his opinion of Serrano, saying among other things, “He is not an artist. He is a jerk. He is taunting a large segment of the American people, just as others are, about their Christian faith. I resent it, and I do not hesitate to say so.” Helms would quickly become a major figure in the attack on the NEA. This was not Helms’s first venture into contentious waters. A Christian conservative from North Carolina, he left the Democratic party for the Republicans in 1970 in protest of the Democrats’ liberal position on civil rights. He would later oppose the formation of the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday and he took strong positions against funding for AIDS research and treatment.

On May 31, Senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) called for the NEA to deny funds to SECCA for five years, as punishment for giving an award to Serrano. He further suggested that Congress should force the hand of the NEA, if necessary, to make sure that SECCA was punished.