By TAHLIB
"I'm a Christian artist making a religious work of art
based on my relationship with Christ and The Church."
~ ANDRES SERRANO
The Interpretation of Dreams (The Other Christ), 2005 |
Photo of Andres Serrano |
2. When did your interest in photography begin and at what point did you decide that you wanted to pursue it professionally, as a career? I started taking pictures after attending the Brooklyn Museum Art School, where I studied painting and sculpting when I was in my teens. After I left art school, I decided I wanted to continue as an artist but I couldn't really paint or sculpt. I was living with a girl named Millie who owned a camera, so I figured I could be an artist with a camera instead of a paintbrush. I didn't make money from my work till I hit forty.
The Interpretation of Dreams (White Nigger), Andres Serrano, 2001 |
Andres Serrano, The Rabble, 1984. ARTIUM de Álava, Vitoria-Gasteiz. Private collection |
"Piss Christ" |
6. Your art has been seen as starting a very important conversation about the tensions between freedom of religion and artistic freedom of speech and expression. Can you comment on the tensions between these two values, and a balance of these tensions, or do you see them as not existing at all in your pieces? Freedom of religion and freedom of expression have something in common: they both have the power to polarize people. Everyone has an opinion on these freedoms and those opinions often clash. It's the result of living in a Democracy where the people don't always share the same values or opinions. That's why it's called a Democracy, because you are free to choose.
Cabeza de Vaca, 1984 |
8. Your latest photography project, as I recently read, is a series of photographs portraying homeless people in America. Can you tell me more about the project? It's called "Residents of New York" and they are portraits of homeless people I took on the streets in January. It's a public installation currently on display at the West 4 St. subway station and in several phone booth locations around town. More Art, an organization committed to bringing art to public spaces, sponsored it. I chose not to use the word homeless in the title, but to call them "Residents of New York" instead, in order to acknowledge them as being residents who are very much a part of the city.
9. Apart from your latest photography series, are you working on anymore photographic or musical projects? Immediately, after shooting the 'homeless' portraits I went to Jerusalem for four weeks. The Jerusalem Foundation had invited me and the Musrara School of Photography to go to Israel to do some work there. I am currently working on a book of the body of work I did in Jerusalem. I love working in the summer, and have no projects at the moment. Maybe someone will invite me to do something.
10. What message or advice do you have for young artists, and youths in general, who are trying to pursue their dreams? Keep your dreams no matter what. When I hit my twenties I turned my back on being an artist and became a drug addict instead. I stayed a drug addict until my late twenties when my biological clock told me that if I stayed in that life in my thirties there'd be no turning back. There are all kinds of ways of being an artist and there is no right way or wrong way, only your way. [link]
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