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Concept
Piss Christ
Summary
Immersion (Piss Christ) is a 1987 photograph by the American artist and photographer Andres Serrano. It depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in a small glass tank of the artist's urine. The piece was a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition, which was sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a United States Government agency that offers support and funding for artistic projects.
The work generated much controversy based on assertions that it was blasphemous. 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."
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 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 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 or polyurethane.
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.
Official source
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