Artwork Description
Andres Serrano – Piss Discus
Dimensions: 30 x 21″
Year: 1998
Medium: pigment print, back-mounted on dibond
Andres Serrano is perhaps best known for his unflinching color photographs of controversial subjects including dead bodies, feces, handguns, Ku Klux Klansmen, and Catholic figurines submerged in bodily fluids. Serrano’s painterly compositions and rich tonalities create strange juxtapositions with his confrontational subject matter. In his famous photograph Piss Christ (1987), for example, Serrano uses a glowing, color-saturated palette to depict his transgressive subject: a crucifix suspended in urine. The photograph became a major touchstone in the American culture wars and sparked debates about arts funding in the United States. The artist has exhibited in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, Beijing, and Brussels. His work has sold for six figures at auction and belongs in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.