Blog Headline of the Morning (Regarding Asshole Andres Serrano)

At Althouse, "Andres 'Piss Christ' Serrano as a guest judge on "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist." And click through to the original article. Some of the works include things like men performing sexual self-gratification. And you can see this stuff on TV? Seriously.

But it's Andres Serrano who's of interest to me (why is he considered a worthy judge for Bravo's program, for example?).

Check this interview with Anna Blume from 1993, regarding "Serrano’s recent photographs of [black] dead bodies":

AB Since color is an issue throughout the show, not just aesthetically, but also racially, and racial issues have shown up in your work before, was this in your mind when you edited for the show, thinking about which bodies to photograph?

AS In a manner of speaking. I photographed these people after the moment of death. I never knew them as human beings. I never knew what languages they spoke, what their religious or political beliefs were, how much money they had, or who they loved. All I know about them is the cause of death. And, as they say, you cannot judge a book by its cover. The woman you referred to as not knowing whether she was actually black, is a bleached blonde, brown-skinned woman. She’s a black woman. But she’s been in the morgue for over two months because she’s a Jane Doe, and as a result, she’s starting to decompose and if you look really closely, there are patches of white skin. I asked the doctor and he confirmed that there is white skin under black skin. A teacher of his once took a very thin slice of skin off a cadaver and showed it to his students and said, “This is the thickness of racism.”

And here's this, from an interview with Andres Serrano in 2002:

Being born, especially being born a person of color, is a political act in itself. Everything you do from that point on is political without having to be called political. My work has social implications, it functions in a social arena. In relation to the controversy over Piss Christ, I think the work was politicized by forces outside it, and as a result, some people expect to see something recognizably "political" in my work. I am still trying to do my work as I see fit, which I see as coming from a very personal point of view with broader implications.

Asshole.

UPDATE: Saberpoint provides some artwork, "Stogie Art: Piss Andres (Andres Serrano)."