Madonna and Child II, Andres Serrano

Exhibition Label:
"Contemporary Photographs: Rethinking the Genres," Oct-2000, Rachel Epp Buller
At first glance, Serrano’s photograph appears an innocuous variation on a popular religious theme. The bright yellows and reds give the Madonna and child a glowing, even holy, appeal. Closer investigation, however, reveals that the photograph stems from a series of works involving bodily fluids, in this case urine and blood. The immersion of a religious figurine in such substances caused some viewers to question Serrano’s intention, an extreme case of which led to the 1989 political controversy over his work, Piss Christ.

Exhibition Label:
"Signs of Faith: Photographs from the Collection," Oct-2001, Elissa L.Anderson
Serrano, influenced by his Catholic upbringing, reinterprets New Testament themes in much of his work. This picture is from a notorious series in which he photographed inexpensive Catholic devotional objects submerged in bodily fluids. This series sparked intense public controversy in the late 1980s. Jesse Helms, who called Serrano “a jerk,” attacked his work in Congress, as support for his campaign to eliminate the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Archive Label:
This photograph is from Serrano’s Immersion series, for which he photographed religious objects in urine. Serrano considered the making of these photographs as part of his own religious exploration: “I wouldn’t be so obsessed with Christianity if I didn’t have a feeling for it, and I find it strange when people call me an anti-Christian bigot.”
“What is wrong,” he continues, “is to make something that isn’t beautiful,” which is his criticism of most cheaply made religious artifacts today. By immersing such objects in his own urine, Serrano seeks to compensate for their vulgarity, to endow them with a beauty he feels they otherwise lack, and to connect them directly with his own body.