Piss Christ Vandalized
Today we’re going to talk about a work of art that is sometimes credited for a moment that incited the beginning of the Culture Wars in the 1990s. It drew admiration, widespread critique, debate, controversy, and, most importantly to this article, vandalism.
Piss Christ
The piece we’re discussing today is called Immersion (Piss Christ) and was created in 1987 by artist Andres Serrano as part of a series of photographs depicting religious items submerged in different liquids like milk, blood, and of course, urine. This work was created when Serrano photographed a plastic crucifix that he plunged into a glass jar of his own urine.
I think you’re probably starting to get why this piece is so polarizing. It’s sometimes called one of the first, and foremost, examples of transgressive art. The artist himself says, “it’s not something I ever did to be controversial. I just did it to be myself” (Christie’s, 2022).
Piss Christ debuted to positive feedback at the Stux Gallery in New York City in 1987. It received a $15,000 award from the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art which was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The photograph was exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art in Pittsburgh, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 1989 and throughout its life it has been vandalized three times, let’s get into those instances.
May 1989
While on display at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, it caught the attention of Rev. Donald Wildmon. Wildmon hated this image so much that he sent letters of protest to every single member of Congress. This gained the image widespread notoriety, especially when a campaign was launched against Piss Christ’s funding from the NEA. US Senator Alphonse D’Amato tore up an image of the photo on the senate floor that same year calling it a “deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity” (Christie’s, 2022). This was the moment I referenced in the intro, what people think was the beginning of the 90s Culture Wars. It served to “ignite national debate on freedom of artistic expression and the public funding of controversial art” (Christie’s, 2022).
Of course, the issue was that Wildmon, and many others, saw this work as disrespectful (to say the least) to their religion. For his part, Serrano said, “”They didn't care that I'm a Christian. I’m an artist using the symbols of my faith: the body and blood of Christ”. For Serrano, the visceral bodily materials employed in the photograph echo the nature of Christ’s suffering. “If Piss Christ offends you, then I’ve succeeded — at least in getting you to feel what happened during the crucifixion”” (Christie’s, 2022). He didn’t intend this photograph, or any of his other work, to be blasphemous, since he himself was religious, but he considered them serious and personal artworks.
October 1997
In 1997, ten years after Piss Christ debuted, it was being displayed as part of a retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia. The Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne at the time, George Pell, tried to get an injunction from the Supreme Court to ban the photograph from public display. He was unsuccessful. So Pell encouraged his followers to protest and hold vigils outside the museum. Sounds peaceful enough…but no. On October 12 two teenagers entered the gallery with a hammer and attacked Piss Christ, smashing it.
April 2011
The image was able to be repaired and, per Serrano’s wishes, it continued to be shown around the world. Since January 2011 it had been displayed without issue as part of Je Crois aux Miracles (I Believe in Miracles), an exhibition to mark ten years of art dealer Yvon Lambert’s personal collection. It was being shown at his 18th century mansion gallery in Avignon, France. Two weeks before the show was scheduled to end things started to take a turn.
Civitas, a lobby group that aims to re-Christianize France, launched an online petition and mobilized other fundamentalist religious groups to have Piss Christ banned in France. On Saturday April 16, 2011 around 1000 protestors marched through Avignon to the gallery. The gallery, to their credit, saw the danger that the image was in and immediately stepped up security measures. They assigned two gallery guards to stand in front of the photograph and they installed plexiglass in front of it.
However, on Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011, four people in sunglasses entered the gallery just after 11:00am. Upon arrival one of the people threatened one guard with a hammer, another of the vandals was grabbed by the other guard but since there were four of them they still managed to smash the plexiglass with the hammer and slash the photograph with a sharp object. They also slashed another photograph that showed the hands of a meditating nun, not sure what was wrong with that one.
The director of the gallery, Eric Mézil, reopened the exhibit following this act of vandalism with the destroyed works untouched, “so people can see what barbarians can do” (Chrisafis, 2011).
The leader of Civitas didn’t take credit for the act, saying to the media, “I don't support or condemn what happened," adding that the attack on the picture "reflects an understandable exasperation" with the museum” (Chrisafis, 2011).
November 2022
There was no vandalism in 2022 but it is when Serrano decided to create an NFT of Piss Christ. “Serrano notes that he was drawn to revisit his most controversial work through an NFT because the format allows the artist to ‘destroy’ the work ‘on the three days in history when it was attacked and destroyed by people.’ In this way, the artist reclaims these highly charged reactions — which relate to religious themes of iconoclasm — and brings them into the work itself. ‘You'll see the original, and then all of a sudden it will shatter in three different ways’” (Christie’s, 2022).
However you perceive Piss Christ or Serrano as an artist, his impact is undeniable. He opened the door for other transgressive artists to express themselves and he has collaborated with many other famous artists and brands. To come back to his new NFT, “this dynamic new work underscores the enduring relevance of the questions around freedom of expression that Piss Christ provoked 35 years ago, which are more pertinent than ever” (Christie’s, 2022).
Works Cited
Chrisafis, Angelique. “Attack on ‘Blasphemous’ Artwork Fires Debate on Role of Religion in France”. The Guardian. 2011. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/18/andres-serrano-piss-christ-destroyed-christian-protesters
“‘It’s A Piece of History’: Andres Serrano Transfigures his Legendary Photograph Piss Christ into a new NFT”. Christie’s. 2022. https://www.christies.com/en/stories/andres-serrano-transfigures-piss-christ-into-nft-206ace81c7284ec58cb7b8978f2ec53c
Williams, Mary Elizabeth. “The Endless Idiotic Outrage about Piss Christ”. Salon. 2011. https://www.salon.com/2011/04/19/andres_serrano_piss_christ_attacked/