In response to the recent attack by Christian fundamentalists on Andres Serrano's Piss Christ, an artist (who wishes to preserve his anonymity) presents a work entitled The Resurrection of Piss Christ. The work will be available online at www.resurrectionofpisschrist.com. It is offered freely by the artist as a high-resolution image for comment, reuse, and repurposing as a rejection of Andres Serrano's profiteering from this emphatically real human conflict.
Immersion (Piss Christ), a photograph taken by Andres Serrano in 1987, depicts a crucifix submerged in what Serrano has claimed to be his own urine. From the time of its first exhibition, it has created controversy; Serrano has regularly received death threats from Christian extremists and Piss Christ has been physically attacked on at least three occasions.
The recent most attack in Avignon has ignited the press. Operating from the simple opposition of free speech and religious fundamentalism, reportage on Piss Christ has only served to fuel the conflict, replacing the damaged physical artwork with an inflammatory symbol which gains power with each repetition. The strife surrounding Piss Christ has clear beneficiaries: the media gain readership and advertising, fundamentalists mobilize their supporters, and Serrano gains both profit and fame. These parties have clear incentives to perpetuate conflict, and take full advantage.
The reality of this conflict, however, has not solely affected Serrano or his work; rather, Piss Christ has resulted in death threats to gallery and museum staff entirely unconnected to its creator. Curators achieve no financial gain from this violence, and security guards no greater stature. The Resurrection of Piss Christ was created in response to first-hand accounts of the effects of these threats.
In contrast to the reality of this danger to staff, The Resurrection of Piss Christ demonstrates the futility of the attack on the work itself: Though one print of Piss Christ has been damaged, the work as a whole has only increased in stature through its repetition as a media-image. The threat to Piss Christ is illusory, yet the discourse around it remains rooted in an age of objecthood. The "Monument Men" of the Second World War, who preserved Europe's art in the midst of wartime, are now replaced by bloggers; preservation is no longer a physical act but a social one.
The Resurrection of Piss Christ, starting from the endpoint of this transition, offers itself as image first. Piss Christ is thereby renewed: it cannot be physically destroyed, and so is above violence; it cannot be physically sold, and so is above commerce; it cannot be attributed, and so is above personal fame or notoriety. Freely circulating on the Web, the artist intends it to experience eternal life through our communication.
The artist admits that The Resurrection of Piss Christ only continues the discussion around Serrano's work. It furthers Serrano's fame and furthers the religious conflict around his work. Piss Christ offers two possibilities: react, and have your reaction become a tool of Serrano, or do nothing and allow ignorance and intolerance to breed. The artist has created The Resurrection of Piss Christ in the course of a search for a third path; the complicity of The Resurrection with a work it questions makes this third path conspicuous in its absence.
A consciously derivative work, The Resurrection of Piss Christ is a direct response to the destruction of the original. Duplicating the same fate as its star subject, Immersion (Piss Christ) is subjected to the artificial immortality we now wield through the Internet. Our interconnectedness now transforms an act of destruction - through communication and distribution - into an act of preservation.
As a statement against fundamentalism, The Resurrection will fuel it.
As a statement against the commercial value of an intentionally contentious work, The Resurrection will feed and inflate it.
I denounce any act that attempts to silence an individuals thought or speech or expression. Simultaneously, I question the integrity of a work that provokes so ineloquently.
The Resurrection flaunts its infinite reproducibility. Coupled with my anonymity, it ignores the archaic mechanism upon which the art market balances itself.
The Resurrection exists beyond the marketplace. Do what you want with it.
