You’ve probably seen the photograph by Andres Serrano before. It’s titled “Piss Christ”, and it caused no little controversy back in the late 1980’s, in part because the National Endowment for the Arts awarded Serrano significant funding for the piece. A bad time for many things, although my wife & I did get married a few hours before 1988. But think of the hair. The fashions. The music. Apart from earlier U2 and then “The Joshua Tree” in 1987 (and our marriage), did much of anything slink out of the ’80’s that you don’t want to pulverize with a large mallet?
There are defenders of the piece. Some say the effect of the light makes a striking image even more striking, while the aesthetes declare that the artist’s principal responsibility is to subvert the bourgeois values, usually religious, of those too obtuse to share the elevated creative and moral sensibilities of the artiste and his cadre. Guess who usually ends up being pissed on, pardon the language? When I discuss this piece in class in the context of what can’t be done by an artist today, I stress to my students that Christians, especially Catholics, can be mocked, ridiculed, and disparaged with little concern for respect or decorum by the offending party. But throw a Koran into a jar of urine? A star of David? A bust of Martin Luther King, Jr.? How many artists do you think would be willing to risk that in the name of their art? Given their normal rhetoric, you would think their courage and social calling would trump anything so bourgeois as a concern not to be criticized, or worse, by moralistic critics.
Back in the ‘80’s I had an idea for a photograph that I thought would make a good point. It would be a crucifixion scene, set in a public place like the ASU campus. Some students would be walking by on their way somewhere (today most would be texting), while others would be sitting on the ground, talking or tanning or reading (texting, probably). Most people would be oblivious to the man hanging on the cross, except for a few people, some pointing and laughing, a few women deeply moved. A sort of commentary on how indifferent most people are to the cross and what it means.
Some art critics, notably Sr. Wendy Beckett, suggested that Serrano was doing something like this. Consider how the crucifix is used in our society. For many it’s simply an ornament worn around their neck, or tattooed somewhere on their body. I once had a cross earring, when I was a 20-year-old punk. Again, the ‘80‘s. I had no respect for the symbol; I liked the shape, I think, and the fact that it was a common thing now being, if not subverted, at least used in a non-religious way. And in a world of punks like this younger, ’80’s me, doesn’t it make sense, Sr. Wendy asked, to draw attention through art to the ways we ignore and insult this most precious and meaningful of Christian symbols? While she didn’t think the work was a notable piece of art, she did appreciate the possibility of seeing it as a suggestion of our indifference and casual blasphemies.
Does this makes sense? Or is this just another crude, blasphemous example of the disrespect shown to Catholics?
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I think all questions raised here are good ones. I would ask two more questions: Is this art? From a Catholic perspective, is it morally permissable to use casual blasphemy to (possibly) demonstrate that we are all casual blasphemers?
Sister Wendy says yes to the first question. This is art, albeit not very noteworthy. I’m not so sure. The reason I’m not sure has to do with the second question. If we answer yes to the second question, then we are sanctioning art with a purpose or message, more commonly known as propaganda. Further, if it is permissable to blaspheme by desecrating a sacramental, which Serrano has done, then why not the Eucharist? If we’re ok with someone, even someone who is ostensibly an artist, putting a crucifix in a vat of their own urine, then why are we getting so upset about homosexuals in San Francisco dressing up like nuns and performing perverted acts in the streets literally outside the church? Why are we concerned about them sneaking into a mass and procuring a consecrated host for illicit activities? To morally sanction Serrano’s piece on such grounds is a bit like saying it’s ok to shoot someone in order to show how senselessly violent we have become in our society.
If, on the other hand, John Paul II was correct in his Letter to Artists then the authentic artist’s vocation is beauty. The best we could say here is that Serrano failed to follow his vocation.
Sr. Wendy’s argument makes for an excellent thought experiment. But when it crosses over into the realm of reality, it becomes sacrilege.
Sacrilege, of course, is the problem here, not, properly speaking, blasphemy. We’re accustomed to acknowledging, at least in a superficial way, that words have consequences. But society tends to forget sacrilege, because it tends to be far too consequentialist to regard objects or actions as capable of possessing any inherent sacral character. The act of placing a crucifix in excrement is sacrilegious, even if the artist’s intent supposedly is not to communicate blasphemy. That is why Sr. Wendy’s claim is false.
An excellent clarification, Titus. Sacrilege is the right word. I think Tony’s point about the Koran or a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. is poignant here. No artist would consider the same idea with one of these objects. In the first case, the Koran, I don’t believe it’s because of any religious sensitivity or respect for Islam. I believe it is because the artist wishes to keep his head attached to his body, an arrangement that would be seriously jeopardized were he to create a “Piss Koran.” In the latter case, the bust of MLK, no artist would sink the thing into excrement because it represents a person who himself represents something that has become sacrosanct in most parts of this country. I remember the hew and cry when impeached governor Mecham blocked the honoring of MLK Day in Arizona. Some were so outraged they sounded like the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demanding Israel be wiped off the map. Thank goodness for the union. Safety in numbers. Strictly speaking, a urine-soaked bust of MLK would not be sacrilege. It would be highly distasteful. But, since the object would have no sacral character, as Titus mentioned a crucifix has, there could be no sacrilege. What Sister Wendy is saying about Serrano’s unimaginative prank would be more apt in the case of a “Piss MLK”. In the end, we are left with the suggestion that sacrilege is acceptable, but you will be lynched (no pun intended) for an artistic expression that is considered distasteful, even if it does not violate any particular moral imperative.
I also wonder where Serrano got this crucifix. Was it blessed? Crucifixes are often blessed before going up for sale on the shelf at parish gift shops. Did he even think to ask?
If you think Christ Crucified could time travel into the future and be plopped down in the middle of ASU’s campus, naked and bleeding and calling out, and no one would notice, you’re crazy.
If Mr. Serrano’s art is a protest against casual blasphemy, then porn is a protest against casual disrespect of femininity.
Tom Jay’s first comment, and Titus’comment helped me to better understand issues such as this one regarding “so called art.”
However, you don’t even have to use such examples as a Star of David, or Koran sitting in urine. What about a bust of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or one of the two Bush Presidents? It would suffice for you to come under fire and be called all kinds of names, and all this only for mere mortals, and not the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings.
Sister Wendy, together with many Catholic bishops, priests, religious, artists, lay leaders, etc. are to be condemned and prayed for, since they lead so many of our Catholic brethren astray.