Piss Christ
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Image:Piss Christ.jpg Piss Christ is a controversial photograph by American photographer Andres Serrano. It depicts a small plastic crucifix supporting the body of Jesus Christ submerged in a glass of the artist's urine. Some have suggested that the glass may also contain the artist's blood. The piece was a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition,<ref> Template:Cite web </ref> which is sponsored in part by the United States National Endowment for the Arts, which offers support and funding for projects that exhibit artistic excellence.
The piece caused a scandal when it was exhibited in 1989, with detractors accusing Serrano of blasphemy and others raising this as a major issue of artistic freedom. On the floor of the United States Senate, Senators Al D'Amato and Jesse Helms expressed outrage that the piece was supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, since it is a federal taxpayer-financed institute.
Serrano produced other similar works to much less controversy; Madonna and Child II (1989), for example, in which the subject is similarly submerged in urine, is not nearly so well known as "Piss Christ".
Piss Christ is often used as a test-case for the idea of freedom of speech, and was described in the journal Arts & Opinion as "a clash between the interests of artists in freedom of expression on the one hand, and the hurt such works may cause to a section of the community on the other." <ref> Template:Cite web </ref> It is referred to in many popular publications including Bill Maher's book When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden.
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In popular culture
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.
Rob Corddry joked on The Daily Show's This Week in God that Piss Christ was really just a misunderstood "scathing critique of modern urology."
Fear Factory has a song called Pisschrist on the album Demanufacture (1995), which was inspired by the work.
Compare To
- The controversial exhibition Ecce Homo
- Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
- The cover art of Celtic Frost's To Mega Therion, which shows Satan using the crucified Christ as a slingshot
See also
References
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