On May 30th, PIASA will present a photographs sale, with 47 pieces from a private collection, amongst which will be shown two iconic works by Andres Serrano.
Major figure of the contemporary art scene, Andres Serrano (born 1950) was made famous by his often scandalous photography, revealing antagonisms, highlighting a inconvenient reality. Provocative, he demands that the viewer face what he does not wish to see. In the 1980s, young Serrano, after a formation in the Brooklyn Museum and Art School, focused on social issues, questions relating to sex and religion in a serial mode. He became known through a series dedicated to bodily fluids (blood, urine, milk, sperm), presented either by themselves, or mixed with crosses or reproductions of statues. Thus, Piss (1987), as the title crudely indicates, is a monochromatic photograph whose hue variations are due only to the qualities of the liquid composing it, the artist’s urine. He declares that his titles “are very descriptive and literal“. If he shoots “a monochrome of milk or blood, [he] calls it ‘Milk’ or ‘Blood’“. To this asserted literal vision, the artist adds a touch of provocation, choosing the word “piss“ rather than “urine“ in order to avoid a clinical lecture of the work and guarantee a larger impact.
Lot 22 - *Andres Serrano (né en 1950)
Piss, 1987
Estimation : 18 000 - 25 000 €
This work on fluids brought Serrano to progressively undertake the series ‘Immersion’, made famous or infamous by Piss Christ (1987), resulting from the immersion of a small plastic crucifix in a glass of blood and urine. To the multiple controversies and vandalism acts elicited by the sulfurous work, the artist, a devout catholic, answered simply, that it is also a way to remind the world of the horrors Christ went through.
With the ‘Immersion’ series, Serrano also denounces the industrial exploitation of Christ, likened to a consumer item. As he explains, the crucifix has become a banal object in the United States, whether used in fashion or in order to show affiliation to a group, neglecting its religious and symbolic dimension.
Lot 23 - *Andres Serrano (né en 1950)
Black Supper (I-V), 1990
Estimation : 100 000 - 150 000 €
It is in a similar spirit that he created Black Supper (1990), a monumental work reinventing Da Vinci’s Last Supper through a strange polyptych of gas and bubbles. In this piece, Jesus and the apostles are plunged into a cloud of religious effervescence and mystic vitality. Estimated 100.000 to 150.000 euros, the work is amongst some of the most charismatic allegories by the artist.
