Serrano, Andres: Body and Soul

Takarajima Books

1995

First Edition

Andres Serrano's name became a household word on May 18, 1989, when Sen. Alphonse D'Amato tore up a picture of the artist's Piss Christ on the floor of the U.S. Senate. That act launched the so-called Culture Wars, a national debate over free expression and federal funding of the arts. But, while Serrano's Piss Christ became widely known, the rest of his photographic work received scant attention. This monograph reproduces for the first time a comprehensive selection of Serrano's photographs. The sixty-eight images, made between 1983 and the present, document his ongoing thematic investigation of the religious spirit and the material body, and show that Piss Christ was no mere avant-garde stunt. From Serrano's earliest images, still lifes of butchered meat, he has been obsessed with a need to comprehend the nature of contemporary spirituality. No artist of his generation is so thoroughly invested in deciphering the meaning of religious dogma.