Artist Serrano speaks on campus yesterday

Showing slides of homeless people and compositions made from several bodily fluids, controversial artist Andres Serrano spoke to an audience of nearly 500 people in Meyerson Hall yesterday. Serrano, who received funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, is at the center of debate about federal funding for works that some consider offensive. Many of Serrano's pieces are centered around religious imagery, including crosses and statues of Jesus, and when he combined these images with bodily fluids, he created his most disputed work, Piss Christ, a picture of a crucifix submerged in urine. He also photographed statues of the Pope and of Joseph and Mary submerged in blood and urine. Serrano said last night that he does not consider his work blasphemous because he does not think blood and urine necessarily have negative connotations. "It's very hard for me as a human being to put a value on these fluids, and which is good and which is bad," he said. "I accept my bodily fluids and I think Jesus did, too." The slides also included the artist's recent Nomad series in which he photographed homeless people on the streets of New York and images of Ku Klux Klan members in full regalia. The audience laughed as Serrano told anecdotes about buying blood by the gallon from a butcher, but students asked frequent questions challenging his statements. Serrano said he does not want to be considered a political artist, despite the recent controversy. "If my work has become politicized, it's something that happens beyond my control," he said. "I'm aware that these works might have political and social implications, although maybe I cannot express them." But some at the University said that the nature of Serrano's work makes him an inappropriate choice for a campus speaker. Laura Strub, president of the Newman Center, said that she thought the photographs were offensive and constituted an attack on Christians, and she was upset that the Graduate School of Fine Arts had invited Serrano to speak. "I was very emotionally distressed when I walked out of there," said the Wharton senior. "It seemed like this kind of thing was acceptable, to just shoot down someone's religion without being sensitive to the audience's religious beliefs." Third-year Fine Arts graduate student Daniel Heyman, a member of the GSFA lecture committee, said he thought Serrano demonstrated the idea that a work of art can take on meaning that the artist does not intend for it to have. "Artists don't necessarily have a critical strategy. That's all supposition," he said. "It's very refreshing when an artist speaks out."

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