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"Art is an imitation of the senses, and since our knowledge is based on the world around us, it has an educational and cathartic function. When art displays the negative passions of men, it assumes the phenomenon of catharsis (purification): it is, therefore, capable of rooting out every negative impulse from the soul of man" [Aristotle]
What is photography, after all, if not a film from a single, eternal long take?
After all, art is based on the imitation or emphasis of reality, whether it be cinema, painting, sculpture, or photography.
"Piss Christ" (1987) stands on the boundary between painting and photography.
It is a photograph in the true sense of the term, yet at the same time, it is a painting: the work is so sublimely executed from a formal-visual standpoint that it destroys.
The pain of the crucifix, so ethereal and suspended in the middle of nowhere, by a sort of light mist. The shadow effects, the swirls, those bubbles that appear like fierce little spirits sweetly encircle a work that could end there, in that embrace of sweetness and pain.
If it weren't for that title.
From there comes the explanation of the mystery: that yellowish mist embracing the crucifix is urine. Serrano's own urine.
And from there arises the antithetical contrast of the work, as Anthony Julius recalls in the splendid artistic manual "Transgressions".
One is captivated by the beauty of a pictorial photograph, splendidly executed, and only subsequently disarmed, and drowned in shame, once the key to creation is discovered. The intent is to find aesthetics even in the disturbing. The work lives on the contrast and relationship of sacred and profane, beauty and excrement, almost highlighting the artist's power and creativity, so potent as to be able to even ridicule the institution of the Church.
"I believe it is necessary to seek beauty even in the least conventional places or unexpected candidates. If I don't encounter beauty, I can't take any photograph" [Andrés Serrano]
Needless to say, at the time of its release, the photograph was immediately reprimanded and brought to court as a fierce blasphemy. On May 18, 1989, a senator tore, during the trial, the catalog in which the work appeared, while another shouted loudly "Serrano is not an artist, but an utter fool".
Yet, despite Serrano's rather controversial vein, "Piss Christ" is not blasphemy, it is a living antithesis, an attempt to merge the sacred and profane, to find a point of approach, but at the same time an attempt to represent faith as a sentiment hidden in every man, in his intimacy and primordial essence: urine.
A misunderstood stroke of genius.
And all because of that title...
If it had been called "Crucify" everyone would have praised it, even if the work would have lost its intent and purpose.
Thus, the work is misunderstood and humiliated, although these reactions of protest led to the consecration of a genius always beyond the expressible.
An artist who transforms human fluids like milk, sperm, blood, piss into art. Disturbing and horrific elements that CANNOT be art according to conventions.
An attempt to break the mold. To enhance the capacity of art, to destroy every taboo and censorship.
Bataille said that: "Our repugnance towards our excrement is so deep that it renders us incapable of speaking about the horror we feel, to the point that the description of these sordid aspects does not even find classification among the taboos that shape our lives".
The disdain we have for our physiological functions and the refusal to admit our dependence on them find their ultimate expression only in relation to what is most pure and immaculate.
Thus, the mountains of shit in the collection "Shit" are stunning photographs, shining and moving just right.
And "Blood And Semen", the union of sperm and blood, appears like a splattered and mad fountain that will appear on the cover of Metallica's "Load".
"Blood And Milk", the union of blood and milk. Similar yet antithetical liquids. Life and death. Death and life. Sacred and profane.
Not to mention the brilliant composition "History Of Sex": surreal frames where the human soul is showcased in its fundamental desire, that is, sex. Disturbing sex, where even individuals not usually associated with intercourse, like the elderly, can participate.
Mutable disquiet: men who are women, women who are men and again the loss of every convention. Sex that binds races and different species.
Even the delicate theme of death, with the consequent lack of respect for the deceased, becomes art for Serrano.
Any atrocity, any excrement, and any horror become soft-spoken beauty.
"A healthy ideal must oscillate between sacred and profane" [Voltaire]
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