''Immersion (Piss Christ)'' is a 1987 photograph by the American artist and photographer

Andres Serrano Andres Serrano (born August 15, 1950) is an American photographer and artist. His work, often considered transgressive art, includes photos of corpses and uses feces and bodily fluids. His '' Piss Christ'' (1987) is a red-tinged photograph of a ...

. It depicts a small plastic

crucifix A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (Lati ...

submerged in a small glass tank of the artist's

urine Urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in humans and in many other animals. Urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the urinary bladder. Urination results in urine being excretion, excreted from the body through the urethra. Cel ...

. The piece was a winner of the

Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) is a multimedia contemporary art gallery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. SECCA has no permanent collection but offers exhibitions of works by artists with regional, national, and international ...

's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition, which was sponsored in part by the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

, a

United States Government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

agency that offers support and funding for artistic projects. The work generated much controversy based on assertions that it was

blasphemous Blasphemy is a speech crime and religious crime usually defined as an utterance that shows contempt, disrespects or insults a deity, an object considered sacred or something considered inviolable. Some religions regard blasphemy as a religiou ...

. Serrano said of the controversy: "I had no idea ''Piss Christ'' would get the attention it did, since I meant neither blasphemy nor offense by it. I've been a Catholic all my life, so I am a follower of Christ."

Description

The photograph is of a small plastic crucifix submerged in what appears to be an orange liquid. The artist described the substance as his own urine in a glass. The photograph was one of a series of photographs that Serrano had made that involved classical statuettes submerged in various fluids—milk, blood, and urine. It followed two years after Serrano's 1985 work, '' Blood Cross''. The full title of the work is ''Immersion (Piss Christ)''. The photograph is a

Cibachrome Ilfochrome (also commonly known as Cibachrome) is a dye destruction positive-to-positive photographic process used for the reproduction of film transparencies on photographic paper. The prints are made on a dimensionally stable polyester base as ...

print. It is glossy, and its colors are deeply saturated. The presentation is that of a golden, rosy medium, including a constellation of tiny bubbles. Without Serrano specifying the substance to be urine and without the

artwork title An artwork title is a word or phrase used to identify and distinguish a particular work of art from others. These titles can be descriptive, indicative of the content or theme of the work, or they can be more abstract and open to interpretation. Na ...

referring to urine by another name, the viewer would not necessarily be able to differentiate between the stated medium of urine and a medium of similar appearances, such as

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In Ma ...

polyurethane Polyurethane (; often abbreviated PUR and PU) refers to a class of polymers composed of organic chemistry, organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethan ...

. Serrano has not ascribed overtly political content to ''Piss Christ'' and related artworks, stressing their ambiguity. He has also said that while this work is not intended to denounce religion, it alludes to the recent trend of commercializing or cheapening Christian icons in contemporary culture. Subsequently, he has explicitly rejected the assertion that he was motivated by blasphemy, saying instead that it was intended as a serious work of Christian art. He said, "What it symbolizes is the way Christ died: the blood came out of him but so did the piss and the shit. Maybe if Piss Christ upsets you, it's because it gives some sense of what the crucifixion actually was like...I was born and raised a Catholic and I've been a Christian all my life." The art critic

Lucy R. Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. ...

has presented a constructive case for the formal value of Serrano's ''Piss Christ'', which she characterizes as mysterious and beautiful. She writes that the work is "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." Lippard suggests that the formal values of the image can be regarded separately from other meanings.

Reception

In 1987, Serrano's ''Piss Christ'' was exhibited at the

Stux Gallery Stux Gallery is a contemporary fine art dealership located on 520 West End Avenue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City. Artists represented/exhibited by the gallery have included Doug and Mike Starn, Vik Muniz, Andres Serrano, Dennis O ...

in New York and was favorably received. The piece later caused a scandal when it was exhibited in 1989, with detractors, including

United States Senators The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and power ...

Al D'Amato Alfonse Marcello D'Amato (born August 1, 1937) is an American politician born in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. He served as United States Senator for New York between 1981 and 1999. He subsequently founded a lobbying firm, Park Strategies. ...

and

Jesse Helms Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was an American politician. A leader in the conservative movement, he served as a senator from North Carolina from 1973 to 2003. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ...

, outraged that Serrano received $15,000 for the work, and $5,000 in 1986 from the taxpayer-funded

. Serrano received death threats and hate mail, and he lost grants due to the controversy. Others alleged that the government funding of ''Piss Christ'' violated the

separation of church and state The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular sta ...

. The NEA's budget was cut. Sister

Wendy Beckett Wendy Mary Beckett (25 February 1930 – 26 December 2018), better known as Sister Wendy, was a British religious sister and art historian who became known internationally during the 1990s when she presented a series of BBC television documentar ...

, an

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

and

Catholic nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

, stated in a television interview with

Bill Moyers Bill Moyers (born Billy Don Moyers, June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Counci ...

that she regarded the work as not blasphemous but a statement on "what we are doing to Christ." Beckett said that she was tempted to say that ''Piss Christ'' might be "comforting art" which she defined as art that was easy to have an opinion and react to. She said, " ... they're not challenged in the slightest. Ninety percent of them think it's blasphemous, and few like me think, well, it might not be. It might be a rather ham-fisted attempt, to preach about the need to reverence the Crucifix. Not a very gifted young man but he's trying his best." "Real art," she continued, "makes demands." During a retrospective of Serrano's work at the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

(NGV) in 1997, the then Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne,

George Pell George Pell (born 8 June 1941) is an Australian cardinal of the Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . I ...

, sought an injunction from the

Supreme Court of Victoria The Supreme Court of Victoria is the highest court in the Australian state of Victoria. Founded in 1852, it is a superior court of common law and equity, with unlimited and inherent jurisdiction within the state. The Supreme Court comprises ...

to restrain the National Gallery of Victoria from publicly displaying ''Piss Christ'', which was not granted. Some days later, one patron attempted to remove the work from the gallery wall, and two teenagers later attacked it with a hammer. Gallery officials reported receiving death threats in response to ''Piss Christ''. NGV Director Timothy Potts cancelled the show, allegedly out of concern for a

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...

exhibition that was also on display at the time. Supporters argued that the controversy over ''Piss Christ'' is an issue of

artistic freedom Artistic freedom (or freedom of artistic expression) can be defined as "the freedom to imagine, create and distribute diverse cultural expressions free of governmental censorship, political interference or the pressures of non-state actors." Gener ...

and

freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...

. ''Piss Christ'' was included in "Down by Law", a "show within a show" on identity politics and disobedience that formed part of the 2006

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

. The British TV documentary ''Damned in the U.S.A.'', first shown by

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

in its ''Without Walls'' arts series in 1991, explored the controversy surrounding ''Piss Christ'', and interviewed Serrano about the work. On April 17, 2011, a print of ''Piss Christ'' was vandalized "beyond repair" by Christian protesters while on display during the ''Je crois aux miracles'' (I believe in miracles) exhibition at the Collection Lambert, a contemporary art museum in

Avignon Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region of So ...

, France. Serrano's photo ''The Church'' was similarly vandalized in the attack. Beginning September 27, 2012, ''Piss Christ'' was on display at the Edward Tyler Nahem gallery in New York, at the Serrano show ''Body and Spirit.'' Religious groups and some lawmakers called for President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

to denounce the artwork, comparing it to the anti-Islamic film ''

Innocence of Muslims ''Innocence of Muslims'' is an anti-Islamic short film that was written and produced by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. Two versions of the 14-minute video were uploaded to YouTube in July 2012, under the titles "The Real Life of Muhammad" and "Muhamm ...

'' that the White House had condemned earlier that month. On October 14, 2022, ''Piss Christ'' was sold at a

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

auction in London, UK for £130,000 (USD $145,162).

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

Annotated transcription of U.S. Senate discussion about ''Piss Christ''
1987 works 1987 in art Christianity in popular culture controversies Urine Crucifixion of Jesus in art Color photographs Vandalized works of art Christianity and society in the United States Obscenity controversies in art Obscenity controversies in photography Religious controversies in art Religious controversies in photography Postmodern art 1980s photographs

Description

Reception

See also

References

External links