NONFICTION - July 30, 1995

ANDRES SERRANO BODY AND SOUL, essays by Bell Hooks, Bruce Ferguson and Amelia Arenas, edited by Brian Wallis. (Takarajima Books: $50; 128 pp.) Artist Andres Serrano had the dubious distinction of becoming an overnight sensation in May of 1989, when Sen. Alphonse D’Amato (R-New York) tore up a reproduction of one of his images and tossed it in disgust on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The image in question, titled “Piss Christ,” depicted a crucifix submerged in urine, and D’Amato’s response to it signaled the beginning of the ongoing Republican assault on federal funding of the arts. Serrano’s art was lost in the fray of the ensuing battle; this, his first book, offers a long-overdue opportunity to access whether the 44-year-old artist’s work is worth the trouble it caused.

Comprised of 68 images dating from 1983 to the present, the book reveals the notorious “Piss Christ” to be part of an ongoing body of work exploring the relationship between flesh, spirit and religious dogma. A Brooklyn-born Latino raised in a devoutly Catholic household, Serrano is a gravely serious artist who approaches his volatile subject matter with rigorous formalism. His beautifully printed pictures eschew any trace of sensationalism but are nonetheless quite disturbing, and in flipping through this book it’s easy to see why Serrano rattled the good Senator’s cage.

Charting Serrano’s evolution, the book includes examples of the still lifes of butchered meat the artist was making in the early ‘80s. That work engendered a fascination with bodily fluids--urine, blood and breast milk, in particular--which led to a series of images of statuettes (some sacred, some profane) submerged in those liquids. Both a critique of the torments suffered in the name of religion and a celebration of its mystical eroticism, this body of work also includes several lyrical abstractions of body fluids. Serrano’s minimalist studies of ribbons of white gracefully arching across a dark field look like homages to Barnett Newman, but are in fact the artist’s semen in trajectory.

From there, the artist completed a series of portraits--of homeless people, Ku Klux Klan members, priests and nuns--that have an aggressive frontality evocative of work by Richard Avedon. The portraits leave one with a distinct sense of unease, however, they pale next to Serrano’s next body of work--photographs of corpses taken at the morgue. These are very tough pictures. Dramatically lit close-ups of body fragments captioned with nothing more than the cause of death, these ruthlessly matter-of-fact pictures strip away the satin and flowers in which we traditionally wrap death in an attempt to soften its blow.

Three accompanying essays are a mixed bag. Bell Hooks gives Serrano’s work a feminist reading, interpreting it as an indictment of the patriarchal church and state that have policed the human body for centuries. Bruce Ferguson focuses on Serrano’s role in the current culture war, and the dramatic increase in censorship the far right is currently pushing for. Amelia Arenas’ essay attempts to place Serrano’s work in the Baroque tradition. All argue their points with adequate lucidity--still, one closes the book hungry to know more about the artist. As for the work, nothing is held back on that score; it succeeds in making you look at things you’re not quite sure you want to see, but are incapable of looking away from.