Posted on 09/27/2012 8:30:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Twenty-five years later, and an artwork's power to enflame is undiminished.
Beginning on the 27th of this month, the Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery in Manhattan will open an exhibit titled Body and Spirit: Andres Serrano 1987-2012. The exhibit, which runs for a month, features a range of works from the controversial artist, including the infamous Piss Christ (1987), a work that consists of a photograph of a plastic crucifix submerged in what is supposedly a jar of the artist's own urine. The gallery's press release describes the work in the following terms:
Piss Christ is a potent work that engages the viewer on both a visual and intellectual level. Unassumingly and with no intention, it has also served as an unwitting lightning rod in media and politics, challenging the values, perception, and definition of art. Piss Christ, ultimately, has turned into a controversial symbol of the freedom of expression and the ability of art to catalyze significant change in society.
It’s of course a bit disingenuous to claim that Piss Christ is an “unwitting lightning rod” in the cultural landscape. Serrano himself has noted that the work is "meant to question the whole notion of what is acceptable and unacceptable," and, let's face it, anyone who deliberately submerges a crucifix in urine for public display does so well aware of the outrage that it may cause.
In 1989 right-wing Christian senators, including Jesse Helms, attacked the work, and it was vandalized in 1997 while on display in Australia at the National Gallery of Victoria. Just last year a group Roman Catholic fundamentalists, bent on an anti-blasphemy campaign, took hammers to Piss Christ in Avignon.
Innocence of Christians
Tomorrow’s exhibition of the work has already drawn criticism from religious leaders and politicians. Bill Donohue, self-styled spokesman for conservative Catholicism, has denounced the exhibition on the grounds that “decent people know it is unacceptable.” For Donohue, Piss Christ and its exhibition make perfectly clear the bias of the liberal elite, for whom “anti-Christian art is not only acceptable, it is laudatory.” Protests and press conferences to follow.
Other affronted parties have invoked comparisons to the decidedly unartistic “Innocence of Muslims,” the now-blockbuster YouTube trailer that triggered protest in Libya and Egypt.
Commenting to Fox News, Staten Island Representative Michael Grimm has called the work a “deplorable piece,” one that is as “offensive” to Christians as ‘Innocence of Muslims’ is to “the Islamic world.” Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the comparison has provided opportunity to emphasize the supposed moral high ground that Christians occupy over Muslims when it comes to material deemed offensive or blasphemous. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Council, told Fox News that the two incidents shore up “the contrast between Islam and Christianity.” “You don’t have to plead with Christians not to riot and burn and storm buildings simply because they are offended,” Perkins said. “That’s the difference. That’s why Christianity moves nations forward and Islam moves nation backwards.”
Although the Times’ Nicholas Kristof has taken a seemingly more measured approach, he still stresses that Piss Christ has not incited violence among Christians. Indeed, even though Kristof takes the tense political situations in Northern Africa and the Middle East into account in evaluating responses to “Innocence of Muslims,” he still finds it necessary to emphasize that, “for a self-described ‘religion of peace,’ Islam does claim a lot of lives.”
Never mind Christianity’s less-than-stellar track record with regard to violence, or the fact that Piss Christ has actually been subject to violent attacks in the past. A crucial difference between “Innocence of Muslims” and Piss Christ is that the former is deliberately and unambiguously offensive—though to recognize as much is by no means to condone violence.
The issue is not so clear with Piss Christ. The irony is that once we work through the initial shock value of Piss Christ, the image is, in many ways, profoundly Christian, a point that is completely lost in the simplistic and literalistic responses of its vocal detractors. According to The Guardian, Serrano himself has claimed that the photograph should be taken as criticism of the “billion-dollar Christ-for-profit industry” and a “condemnation of those who abuse the teaching of Christ for their own ignoble ends.”
It could be that the failure of critics to recognize as much indicates that Serrano’s criticism hits a little too close to home. Behind the immediate criticism of the work is a theological point, as well. The central claim of Christianity is that, in the incarnation, God became fully human, just like us. I remember buying diapers for my wife’s grandfather in the days leading up to his death. Like countless others facing their demise, he had, at the end of his life, lost the ability to control even the most simplest of bodily functions. If we cannot imagine a urine-soaked cross, then perhaps we have not really understood what it means when Christians claim that God became human. Perhaps Serrano has understood it more than his pious detractors.
Obama and Hillary will be paying $70,000 to air apology commercials in the New York area.
I am waiting for the Piss Mohammad-—and the Piss Buddha—
I have an idea for an art project. A public art display.
Wouldn’t it be artistic to visit the Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery in Manhattan and urinate on the floor of the art gallery.
Perhaps with many other people, as a flash mob scene.
I have an idea for an art project. A public art display.
Wouldn’t it be artistic to visit the Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery in Manhattan and urinate on the floor of the art gallery.
Perhaps with many other people, as a flash mob scene.
I take it as a celebration of the "billion-dollar defame-Christ-for-profit" industry.
Brilliant.
AFK for a bit. Have to find an embassy to storm.
Well isn’t this interesting. You can join the museum’s mailing list.
http://www.edwardtylernahemfineart.com/gallery/
Nice way to deliver a message in the form field boxes on their sign up form.
Your Name:
UR Disgusting
Email Address:
pissonthis@hateondisplay.com
I never understand the liberal criteria for viewing issues.
In the case of Piss Christ, liberals tell us we have to be tolerant ,etc. and that it doesn’t matter if Christians are deeply offended. We’re lectured about freedom of speech and other issues if Christians find offense at Piss Christ.
But in the case of the stupid Mohammed video or Mohammed comics, we’re supposed to bend over backwards to show that we have deep respect and reverence for the beliefs of another religion. We’re supposed to bend over backwards to avoid offending adherents of a certain religion. In such cases, issues of freedom of speech are said not to matter. It’s all about avoiding offending someone’s religious beliefs.
So which is it liberals? Are we permitted virtually unlimited freedom of speech so that we can offend religion, or not?? Are we supposed to avoid offending religion, or not? What are the criteria????
There may be a glitch in the urinating on the museum floor as art idea. Their website says that are not presently accepting artists submissions.
If I lived close enough to this museum I’d deliver the art anyhow.
Perhaps as a charitable contribution to aspiring artists we could provide a grant to cover the cost of the art project.
What would the website name be...
pissontheflooroftheEdwardTylerNahemFineArtMuseum.com
Sister Wendy Beckett, a world famed art critic and a Carmelite nun, gave the work a fantastic and thought provoking critique that you might look up.
That said, look at it artistically: he took a crucifix and pi**ed on it in a jar. Do I have that right? Where is the artistic ability behind the creator of the “artwork” being shown? That he can aim straight?
What if it was a bar of soap in a jar he pi**ed in? Artistic? Artistically pleasing? Intellectually stimulating? No, a stupid idea. He only got any attention because all of the non religious nut jobs gave him money from the NEA to denigrate Christianity. And how much money did he need to create this “genius” work? $5? He would have failed a community college art class with this abomination.
My neighbor that I've enjoyed good relations with for 10 years makes French jokes and I make Mormon jokes. He would never do so in French Canada and I would never do so at a gathering of Mormons that I was unfamiliar with. Neither of us has the level of familiarity with these strangers that would permit that.
However, there's also a sense that one should bend over backwards to avoid offending strangers - particularly in high profile international situations.
All of this ignores the reality of instant communication and almost costless replication of information. The stranger is no longer safely geographically far away. They are, as it were, staring in our window and making judgments about now tidy we keep our homes.
this is not newsworthy
Excrement is excrement.
thoughtful remarks on your part. uncommon these days. are you french? is your neighbior mormon? anyway, civility is a good thing. pray for it! thanks. i happen to be of german descent and a deserving recipient of kraut jokes. oh well. this life is not all there is. the Christ, whom some folks would do more than pee on, lives.
think of this “artist” as a servile creature. he is not free. you are. let him go. not worth getting wee-weed up over. whatever is pure, whaterever is good. think on these things. fight the good fight. you know that.
There is - I think - a point to be made here. Piss Christ is not necessarily a profound theological work, but it can be used to illustrate a point that did not enter into the artist’s mind when he was making it.
To my chagrin, the thought I am about to present is not necessarily mine originally, so I will post the article from which I am taking this: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-mocking-of-muhammad-and-condemning-of-christ
So many people look at their religion and see it as an unassailable monolith which has to be defended. That somehow blowing up cartoonists and buses or ramming planes into buildings is a defense of an omnipotent God.
Instead God has chosen Christ as an object of great humility. He is brought before the authorities and accused and convicted of a crime of which he is innocent. He is beaten, and spit upon and he is sentenced to death. It only follows that the “intellectuals” of our world would also see fit to defile his name, but Christ - like a sheep before its shearers - is silent. He is not haughty or proud. He is a sacrifice and the sins of us all are placed upon him and he is led up the mountain to die a humiliating death for our sins.
So when this world comes against us and persecutes us and accuses us of all sorts of evil because of him (Matt 5:11), we are in fact blessed for suffering with him. As he was a sacrifice, so we are called to take up our crosses and follow him and die a humiliating death to ourselves. (Matt 16:24)
The wisdom of this world seeks honor, but something that is different about Christianity is the emphasis on humility. This was so important that Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians (2:20-21):
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
The truth is that seeking honor, or seeking salvation through works is ultimately fruitless. No amount of religiosity, martyrdom, piety, and generosity can save. The only thing that saves is the grace of God. We do not gain salvation by works, but it is the free gift to all who believe.
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