"I would never, ever have dreamed that I would leave to see such demeaning disrespect and desecration of Christ...Maybe, before the physical persecution of Christians begins, we will gain the courage to stand against such bigotry."
-Donald E. Wildmon on Andres Serrano


Donald E. Wildmon is not a beleaguered Christian in first century Rome; he's the executive director of the American Family Association (AFA), the group that organized the boycott of The Last Temptation of Christ. The current target of Wildmon's ire is no megabucks bio-pic or steamy Madonna video, but a single photograph by New York artist Andres Serrano entitled Piss Christ.

Serrano's picture is a 60-by-40-inch cibachrome of a crucifix seen through a swirling haze of bubbly yellow liquid-the artist's own urine. The photograph is one of eight by Serrano in an exhibition called "Awards in the Visual Arts" (a/k/a AVA). The seventh incarnation of a prestigious show sponsored by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, the exhibition was seen at museums in Los Angeles and Pittsburgh last year and ended its tour at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond on January 29. It was in this northernmost outpost of the Bible Belt that the bodily fluids hit the fan.

Sometime after the show closed, AFA (which refused to speak to The Village Voice for this article) distributed a statement to its members about Serrano's picture that included the names and some addresses of AVA's sponsors (the Rockefeller Foundation, the Equitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts), and those of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives. By Easter, letters of complaint appeared in the Richmond papers, and arrived at the museum, the sponsoring foundations, and the NEA as well.

The institutions involved immediately issued statements apologizing for any offense, and all but one-the Equitable Foundation-asserted artists' right to free expression. The most forceful came from Peter Goldmark, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, whose remarks to the Associated Press on April 25 read, in part: "I respect the right of any individual to object to a work of art, and the parallel right of artists to express themselves and of exhibitors to show works that they deem interesting and meritorious artistically." None of the funding institutions has withdrawn support from AVA because of the AFA-fomented brouhaha, although BMW will replace Equitable as the program's corporate sponsor, as had been announced last year.

The Serrano case is, however, riddled with ironies. The AVA may be the most scrupulously and democratically organized exhibition in the country. Each year 100 art professionals nominate 500 geographically dispersed artists from which 10 are selected by a five-person jury. (AVA 7 was juried by Howard Fox, Donald Kuspit, Howardena Pindell, Ned Rifkin, and Tom Sokolowski.)

Marcia Tucker, director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, nominated Serrano. She described him to me as a "terrific artist" and commented that his use of bodily fluids provokes discomfort because it "indicates the extent to which we're unable to deal with our humanity. This is, no doubt, part of the power of Andres's work, to render the sacred secular and vice versa." Tucker's appraisal of the quality of Serrano's work is shared by numerous critics and curators. As Tom Sokolowski, director of NYU's Grey Art Gallery, pointed out, this is "no instance of having to defend third-rate art solely on the basis of the First Amendment."

Even more ironic is the AFA's self-righteous attack on the immorality of Serrano's work. Many of the Tupelo-based, family-run organization's claims about the effectiveness of its actions and boycotts are patently false. Its allegation that Universal lost $10-12 million on The Last Temptation of Christ was decisively rebutted in a front page Variety story of November 8, which noted that the picture, in fact, turned a profit. The same article states that "a parallel boycott" of MCA's videocassette release of E.T. was accompanied by record-breaking sales. AFA's claims that it persuaded General Mills, Ralston Purina, and Domino's Pizza to drop advertising for Saturday Night Live were categorically denied by spokespersons for these companies, as well as by NBC.

Will the Serrano affair be different? It might well have remained just a tempest in a teapot if Congress hasn't gotten involved, which is surely the result of AFA calling attention to the matter. Within the last few weeks, more than 100 members of the House of Representatives have requested information from the NEA about its association with AVA, and Representative Richard Baker (Republican, Louisiana) inserted a wildly inaccurate and inflammatory statement about the NEA's funding of Serrano's art into the Congressional Record of May 10. An outright assault on the independence of the Endowment itself may be in the making.

In its official response to the Serrano flap, NEA's acting chairman Hugh Southern notes that "the Endowment is expressly forbidden in its authorizing legislation from interfering with the artistic choices made by its grantees." Representative William Dannemeyer (Republican, California) is ready to rewrite that legislation. The archconservative congressman wants "oversight to ensure this doesn't happen again," according to Dannemeyer spokesman Paul Mero. "If it's a choice between leaving the NEA the way it is or not funding it, we'll vote for not funding."

Although it may be too early to forecast the outcome or ramifications of this scandale, it's not too soon to notice the pattern that's emerged. Like the two controversial Chicago artworks of the last year-David Nelson's painting of former mayor Harold Washington in bra and panties, and Dread Scott's mixed media piece that invited viewers to step on the flag-the Serrano situation embodies the current mania for symbol-over-substance epitomized by George Bush flag-pledging himself to electoral victory. Akin to the tepid governmental support Salman Rushdie received for The Satanic Verses, no institutionalized support for Serrano has been couched in the relevant language of either "censorship" or the "First Amendment."

Serrano aptly characterized the attacks on his work as "First Amendment double-talk." He wondered how you can "defend my right to make this art, but say that no individual or institution that receives government funds should be allowed to support it...You can't denounce censorship in one breath and demand it in the next."

Not unless you think you have a direct line to god.


Scene & Heard
June 7, 1989

Writing about the Moral Majoritarian savaging of Andres Serrano's Piss Christ a few weeks ago [see above], I suggested that "an outright assault on the independence of the [National Endowment for the Arts] may be in the making." Talk about understatement! Certain members of Congress have latched onto the Serrano flap like pit bulls in heat.

The action seems to have shifted from the House to the Senate. A few excerpts from Senator Slade Gorton's (Republican, Washington) extremely lengthy remarks of May 31 entitled "On the Official Funding of Religious Bigotry":

"Given that one of the most generously reviewed exhibitions of recent times was the artist Judy Chicago's mixed-media depictions of female genitalia arranged on dinner plates, and that one of the masterpieces of Conceptual Art was minted as the artist himself was thrown out of a window into a tremendous pile of horse manure, am I supposed to? [what, follow him?]...Where is the consensus for Piss Christ?...Is there anyone who will declare that this is not religious bigotry? What will the NEA pay for next? A mockery of the Holocaust? A parody of slave ships?...[Serrano's argument] is a religious argument, and the Government of the United States should not take sides in religious arguments. Here by subsidizing one of the parties it has done so."

How to rectify such crimes against Christendom? Senator Gorton proposes depriving the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, which organized the exhibition containing Serrano's work, of federal funding for "say five years." According to Gorton's press secretary, Sharon Kanareff, the senator "wants to give the NEA a chance to rectify the situation before introducing legislation." (Our own Senator Alfonse D'Amato is also "outraged" by Serrano's photo. He circulated a letter of protest on the floor of the Senate which was signed by 25 senators, including Jesse Helms.)

NEA's acting chairman Hugh Southern will be meeting with Gorton this month, according to spokesman Joe Slye. But Southern is beginning to look like part of the problem, rather than the solution. His June 6 response to congressional inquiries contains the promise to "review our process" and the remarkably inappropriate admission that he "personally found it [Piss Christ] offensive." This was balanced by no art professional's interpretation or appraisal of Serrano's work. In fact, the kitschy, plastic crucifix submerged in urine is read by many viewers as an indictment of the commercialization of Christ, rather than a blaspheming of His image.

Why isn't Congress worried about the "debasement" of Christian symbols at the hands of demonstrably corrupt tax-exempt televangelists? Why haven't the NEA and its supporters demonstrated even a modicum of political will in this matter? What will happen when the Robert Mapplethorpe retrospective opens at the Corcoran Gallery of Art on July 1?