Andres Serrano
| Andres Serrano | |
|---|---|
Serrano in 2005
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| Born |
August 15, 1950 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Photography |
Andres Serrano (born August 15, 1950) is an American photographer and artist who has become famous through his photos of corpses and his use of feces and bodily fluids in his work, notably his controversial work "Piss Christ", a red-tinged photograph of a crucifix submerged in a glass container of what was purported to be the artist's own urine. He is also notable for creating the artwork for the heavy metal band Metallica's Load and ReLoad albums.
Serrano was born in New York City on August 15, 1950. He is from a half Honduran, half Afro-Cuban background, and was raised a strict Roman Catholic. He studied from 1967 to 1969 at the Brooklyn Museum and Art School, yet is considered to be a self-taught photographer. In December 1980, he married artist Julie Ault. In a 2012 interview, Serrano references Ault as his "first wife" and Irina Movmyga as his current wife. Serrano has said that he is a Christian.
He worked as an assistant art director at an advertising firm, before creating his first works in 1983.
His work has been exhibited in diverse locations around the world including the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City, World without end (2001), and a retrospective at the Barbican Arts Centre in London, Body and soul (2001).
His exhibitions have often inspired angry reactions. On October 5, 2007, his group of photographs called "The History of Sex" were on display and several were vandalized at an art gallery in Lund, Sweden by people who were believed to be part of a neo-Nazi group. On April 16, 2011, after two weeks of protests and a campaign of hate mail and abusive phone calls to an art gallery displaying his work, orchestrated by groups of French Catholic fundamentalists, approximately a thousand people marched through the streets of Avignon, to protest outside the gallery. On April 17, 2011, two of his works, Piss Christ and The Church, were vandalized. The gallery director plans to reopen the museum with the damaged works on show "so people can see what barbarians can do".
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