We Have Grown Used to Beauty Without Horror
A major meme in the apologiasphere the last week has been to compare peeing on the Quran to Andres Serrano’s 1987 photograph Piss Christ. Now, I used to yammer about Piss Christ with the best of them. It’s not that I personally was offended - rather, it was easy to buy into the narrative that Piss Christ represented a bankrupt postmodern esthetic of shock for its own sake, and federally funded shock at that. It was my old friend Dave Saia who tried to set me straight by clipping me an interview with Serrano about the work. I can’t find the exact article, but had I been smarter I wouldn’t have needed it in the first place.
The outraged narrative holds that “Andres Serrano sunk a crucifix in urine.” The problem is how incomplete a description this is. Look. Andres Serrano submerged a crucifix in urine, then photographed it. More: Andres Serrano submerged a crucifix in urine and photographed it up close and sidelit so that, absent both title and gloss, you couldn’t tell that that is what he had done precisely. More: Andres Serrano submerged a crucifix in urine (and cow’s blood, I learn this morning) and photographed it up close and sidelit so that it has a weird beauty.
If all you wanted to do was get some paté on the booboisie, that’s a lot more trouble than you needed to go to. The shortest route to that is to pee into a big ol’ jar, dunk a crucifix and carry it down to the Whitney in time for the Biennial - in 1987-8, they’d have displayed it. They might display it still. You could make a show of replenishing the evaporating liquid every day to give it that extra twist of cultural sadism. At the very least, if you’re just going to display a photograph for maximum shock value, you pull back the lens and normalize the lighting - shoot the whole jar under bare incandescent bulbs.
No, a man who goes to the trouble Serrano took with the actual Piss Christ clearly has more on his mind than ticking off the rubes. Given the paradoxes and ironies of the resurrection story itself, you can even see the photograph as a deeply religious work, the Savior shining through the waste that is the world. That’s the interpretation Andrew Hudgins took in a fine 2000 poem I just discovered today. Beginning:
If we did not know it was cow’s blood and urine,
if we did not know that Serrano had for weekshoarded his urine in a plastic vat,
if we did not know the cross was gimcrack plastic,
we would assume it was too beautiful.
We would assume it was the resurrection,
glory, Christ transformed to light by light
because the blood and urine burn like a halo,and light, as always, light makes it beautiful.
There are layers of significance to the photo. As Hudgins says, it looks beautiful until you find out what you’re seeing. But then it looks beautiful again, if you let it. Is this because our fallen world of blood and piss and gimcrack plastic have a beauty we scant, or is that word, “Piss” in the title trying to pierce a veil of maya we’d rather keep in place? At some deeper level, is the iconography of the resurrection itself classed among the maya by the photographer, pace Hudgins? I don’t think so, but perhaps the interpretation is available.
Regardless, what we have here is a genuine work of art, not just an attempt to bang the knee of the faithful with the mallet of blasphemy to watch it jerk.
Comment by digamma —
June 9, 2005 @ 8:18 am
what we have here is a genuine work of art
A totally valid opinion. But why are people who disagree paying for it?
Comment by Jim Henley —
June 9, 2005 @ 8:57 am
Oh I’m not in favor of the SUBSIDY at all. But the subsidy isn’t what has “Piss Christ” back on everybody’s lips.
Comment by Sean —
June 9, 2005 @ 9:08 am
I always thought it was a lovely piece.
Comment by Avram —
June 9, 2005 @ 9:49 am
I’ve managed to totally miss this particular moral equivalence argument. Has anyone bothered to point out that prison guards should be held to stricter standards of behavior than artists?
Comment by Laertes —
June 9, 2005 @ 9:54 am
“A totally valid opinion. But why are people who disagree paying for it?”
Why are people who disagree with the Iraq war paying for it? Where did we get the idea that tax dollars can only be spent on things for which there’s unanimous support?
Comment by Leonard —
June 9, 2005 @ 12:22 pm
Laertes, we get that idea that taxation is wrong from natural law theory, particularly the idea of self-ownership. Anarchists are willing to pursue this notion to its logical conclusion: abolishing the state. In anarchy, it is likely you’d not be supporting either art you don’t like, or wars you don’t like, via your protection agency. (And if you were, you’d have a good reason to switch to some other agency.)
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Most libertarians don’t take it that far, and believe the state should be able to tax to support its core “anti-aggression” functions (military, police, courts). Supposedly these functions are so important that the state must exist and control them, or something like that. Anyway, point here is that clearly war is more important than art, so it is possible to make a distinction where violating your right to your labor is OK for important things, but not for unimportant things.
Comment by Jeremy Osner —
June 9, 2005 @ 12:29 pm
“clearly war is more important than art”
Words to live by.
Comment by ryan b —
June 9, 2005 @ 12:43 pm
“clearly war is more important than art”
Gotta love modern society.
Comment by Nell —
June 9, 2005 @ 2:16 pm
apologiasphere
Nice one.
Comment by Avram —
June 9, 2005 @ 2:17 pm
Ryan, “important” is not the same thing as “desirable”.
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Leonard, I could argue that the public funding of warfare is less desireable than the public funding of art:
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Public funds come with string attached; if the government gives you money, the government gets to tell you what to do with that money, or it stops giving it to you. According to a major branch of libertarian theory, the centralization of decision-making inevitably causes a loss of information, with a resulting greater tendency towards bad decision-making. And since the consequences of badly-decided war-making are so much worse than the consequences of badly-decided art-making, it is worse for war to be centrally controlled, and therefore worse for war to be funded with tax dollars.
Comment by The Editors —
June 9, 2005 @ 2:31 pm
“A totally valid opinion. But why are people who disagree paying for it?”
So that they will complain about the $0.30 each of them spent on the NEA this year, instead of the $30 they paid to distort the food market, or the $1,500 they were charged to keep the US military prepared to defend West Berlin from any Soviet aggression.
Money well spent, from a certain point of view.
Comment by J.W. Hastings —
June 9, 2005 @ 3:58 pm
“There are layers of significance to the photo. As Hudgins says, it looks beautiful until you find out what you’re seeing. But then it looks beautiful again, if you let it.”
He leaves out the part where you and your sophisticated art-loving friends can then feel superior to the dumb people in Kansas (or New Jersey) who are just offended by it.
Comment by Avram —
June 9, 2005 @ 5:07 pm
JW, do the sophisticates in Kansas also get to thumb their noses at boors in Manhattan, or is artistic appreciation tied to geography?
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And have you ever checked out Hudson County, NJ’s art scene?
Comment by Daryl McCullough —
June 9, 2005 @ 6:02 pm
Jim,
If you think before you condemn, then you are thumbing your nose at those who condemn before they think.
For that matter, it’s rude and insulting of you to compose thoughtful essays. They are just a finger in the eye to those of us who are never thoughtful. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Comment by Jim Henley —
June 9, 2005 @ 6:36 pm
JW, the weird resentment in your post positively dumbfounds me. Particularly considering that you are yourself a critic. Surely it matters, before we go deciding who has the right to feel superior to whom, whether the work in question is of genuine merit. And if there’s any point to criticism at all, it’s the opportunity to increase people’s appreciation of work of merit - as, after all, my friend Dave and Andrew Hudgins helped increase mine.
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Hudgins, for the record, is a thoroughgoing southerner and passionate Christian. I highly recommend his later books to you. (AFTER THE LOST WAR is merely nice.) As for whom I personally feel superior to, it starts with the me who looked without seeing and saw without thinking. I suppose I also feel superior to anyone who clings to their initial offense like a favorite teddy. No, that’s not quite right either: I can respect someone who finds the work offensive but nevertheless appreciates its artfulness. Frex, I can see an interpretation which integrates the photograph itself - lovely - with the author’s contextual gloss, draws a connection to the tradition of food advertising photography (all those indigestible ingredients faked up to look yummy) and decides that Serrano’s work is deeply anti-Christian because its DHM is that Christianity is all a trick of promotion, and finds that message dire. But art-loving sophisticates like you and I, because you really can’t include yourself out of that crowd with your background, may take offense, but we would still need to acknowledge the craft and passion behind such a jibe.
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Mind you, I can take that very line of interpretation a level further, so that Piss Christ becomes one of PK Dick’s “fake fakes” - after all, the things pictured in food advertising are inedible, but the things they signify are delicious and not infrequently nourishing. Viewed this way, Piss Christ is about how the power of Christian truth transcends the worldly means of communicating it.
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The thing is, someone who is “just offended by it” feels superior to the artist, as well as anyone to whom the work speaks. You might be able to get away with the “you supercilious meanie” dodge if you pulled it on someone who didn’t read every issue of the New Criterion for ten years, but I KNOW PERFECTLY WELL that the conservative-critical discourse against works like Piss Christ is ALL ABOUT feeling superior. I USED TO SHAVE THAT FACE EVERY MORNING! Try someone who’s never heard of Hilton Kramer and never read Roger Kimball and you might get further. I ain’t buying.
Pingback by A Pot to P;ss In § Unqualified Offerings —
June 9, 2005 @ 8:11 pm
[…] Sideways at Your World Since October 2001 June 9, 2005 A Pot to P;ss In More “Piss Christ” blogging, addressing the evergreen question that came up (in […]
Comment by J.W. Hastings —
June 9, 2005 @ 8:20 pm
Jim,
The weird resentment stemmed from this–”had I been smarter I wouldn’t have needed it in the first place”–which implies that those of us who still feel that “Piss Christ” is a bankrupt piece of pomo conceptual shock art are not that smart or, at least, not that smart about art. I’ve seen it and I’ve thought about it, I’ve read eloquent defenses of it and listened to lectures that convinced everyone else in the room that it was a masterpiece, and I can assure you I’m not holding onto my dislike of the work out of ignorance or stubborness. I was probably reading too much into your phrasing, but your original piece left out the possibility that someone might, in good faith, come to the conclusion that “Piss Christ” is simply bad art or that its shock-and-offense-value outweighs everything else about it.
Despite Serrano’s talent as an image-maker, despite the valid questions the piece may raise, despite the fact that he made very deliberate choices while making it–it is still a piece of conceptual shock art. The image–on its own–may have a “weird beauty”, but it’s kind of generic and relatively non-descript. You wouldn’t look twice at it–you wouldn’t even bother to “think” about it–if you didn’t know that it is a picture of a religious symbol that many people place great importance on floating in a jar of urine. The only meaning the photo has it has has to do with its elements that Serrano designed to shock and offend. However, it was not designed to shock or offend the kind of people who would make up its primary audience–i.e. sophisticated, pomo art-lovers. And I find this kind of ritualized courting of controversy, if not bankrupt, than extremely boring. For what it’s worth, I think that art that sets out to offend sophisticated, pomo art-lovers is also pretty boring, but I guess I prefer an artist vs. audience vibe over an artist-and-audience vs. everyone else vibe. And you’ll notice that a lot of the defenses of Serrano quickly degenerated into “why don’t the rubes get it” complaints.
I see your point that someone who is “just offended” by the piece might feel morally superior to the artist, but they might also feel, well, just offended. And I certainly don’t feel superior to you because the work speaks to you, while I think it’s bankrupt. I don’t think you appreciate the work because you’re not smart enough to know better. Rather, I think you have a different take on the piece, developed in good faith, etc. But surely the question of whether or not “Piss Christ” is a piece of bankrupt pomo shock art is still up for debat. I’ve used a similar analogy in a different context before, but if the worth of Roy Lichtenstein’s paintings is still up for debate, then “Piss Christ” doesn’t get a free pass.
All the best,
J.W.
Comment by J.W. Hastings —
June 9, 2005 @ 8:32 pm
Jim,
In retrospect my comments on this look a little too cranky. I usually try not to be that thin-skinned. Anyway, thanks for your considered response to my original cheap shot.
Cheers,
J.W.
Comment by Leonard —
June 9, 2005 @ 8:40 pm
Avram, I’m with you on that. That is, if the US is to remain a state, but I am somehow given the option to either:
(a) privatize defense, and keep taxpayer-funded art, or
(b) privatize art, keeping taxpayer-funded defense,
I’d choose (a), exactly because war is more important than art. But then as I said, I’m an anarchist, not a minarchist. Minarchists think that the state can be trusted with an army, or perhaps that it can’t really but it’s the best of a bad set of options.
Comment by Jim Henley —
June 9, 2005 @ 8:48 pm
Leonard, I’ll take what’s behind Door Number Three! Unless I lost count. Anyway, the last one.
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JW, thank you. I was peevish in response, needless to say. Your second item contains much food for thought. I want to come back to it, but I also want to read some Alan Furst and go to bed. So, anon!
Comment by Jon H —
June 10, 2005 @ 2:07 am
Leonard wrote: “Anyway, point here is that clearly war is more important than art”
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Surely not when the war is an optional charity war.
Comment by Laertes —
June 10, 2005 @ 10:18 am
This is one of those weblogs, like DeLong, where I very rarely wade into the comments, and should do it less than I do. I always end up feeling like a drunken lout in the cheap seats bickering with the other bleacher bums while the pros down on the field throw stuff I can’t hit and hit stuff I can’t throw.
Messrs Hastings and Henley, y’all are an inspiration.
Comment by Kriston —
June 14, 2005 @ 10:56 am
J.W. Hastings wrote: “He leaves out the part where you and your sophisticated art-loving friends can then feel superior to the dumb people in Kansas (or New Jersey) who are just offended by it.”
This ignores that _Piss Christ_ was on display for a southwest regional show in New Mexico for months, where it was appreciated without controversy, before Helms sought out artists’ work for a beachhead in the culture war. Same for Mapplethorpe and the NEA 4. The offense was manufactured and drummed up, as is the claim that these artists were some sort of elitist cabal targeting red state sensibilities. Unless you see New Mexico as a third coast for the fifth column, it sounds to me as if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
I recommend Wendy Steiner’s book, _The Scandal of Pleasure_, if you’re interested in facts about the NEA/obscenity trials.
Comment by Kriston —
June 15, 2005 @ 9:57 am
Hmm, that came across a lot snottier than I meant it. Apologies, J.W., I intended to disagree, not tell you off.
Comment by Jim Henley —
June 15, 2005 @ 10:02 am
See? Peace and love!
Trackback by Grammar.police —
June 15, 2005 @ 12:43 pm
Urinary Tract Inflections
An image of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ I posted a while back has been linked by a few bloggers who put Serrano’s artwork in the same ballpark as recent revelations about U.S. military abuse of the Qu’ran. The left, the…
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June 24, 2005 @ 12:41 pm
[…] ore collector’s plate, the Schwarzenegger bobblehead, the George W. Bush lunch pail, the peeable crucifix, the Jesus/Rambo limited edition team-up collectible card gam […]
Comment by Mr. Bill —
June 24, 2005 @ 4:24 pm
I once heard Sister Wendy (yeah, the ART NUN) on “Fresh Air with Terry Gross” and she made the best comment on “Piss Christ” I had ever heard:
Asked about ‘art that some people would find blasphemous, involving religeous symbols’, she said(this is from memory, so it was something like)”Well, you must be talking about Serrano. I’m not horrified by this work, because, if you read some of the Christian mystics, it was said, when we sin, we do worse things to Christ than submerging him in urine. And it is a rather pretty photo, with the crucifix in golden light.
And” (she continued)” this sort of work is whatt I think of as newspaper cartoon art: once you get the message, there isn’t so much there to return too. Once you have the joke, why look at it again?”
Christian compassion and rational criticism in one package.
Comment by Error 404 —
June 27, 2005 @ 10:07 am
Art is more important than war.
War without art is just monkeys throwing dangerous shit at each other.
Art without war is at least as meaningful and humanizing as art with war.
Comment by Gregg —
June 30, 2005 @ 6:54 am
digamma wrote: A totally valid opinion. But why are people who disagree paying for it?
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To maintain civil society against the prospect of a return to feudalism?
Comment by Jim Henley —
June 30, 2005 @ 10:24 pm
Ooh, I don’t think that’s it somehow.