Piss Christ

"Piss Christ" is a controversial photograph by the artist Andres Serrano. It depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's urine.

The image itself, shorn of its title and without knowledge of the materials involved, appears to be fairly conventional piece of religious art depicting Christ on the cross. The controversy sprang from the alleged blasphemies of placing the words "Piss" and "Christ" next to each other and in depicting Christ floating in urine.

The piece caused a scandal when it was exhibited in 1987, with detractors accusing Serrano of blasphemy and others raising this as a major issue of artistic freedom. On the floor of the United States Senate, Senators Alphonse d'Amato and Jesse Helms expressed outrage and all but implied that Serrano's funding from the National Endowment for the Arts constituted a commission for the work (see external link).

Serrano produced other similar works to much less controversy; "Madonna and Child II" (1989), for example, in which the subject is similarly submerged in urine, is not nearly so well known as "Piss Christ".

"Piss Christ" is often used as a proxy for the idea of freedom of speech, or as in this case, freedom of expression. It is referred to in many popular publications including the book by Bill Maher