In 1987 American “artist” Andres Serrano dropped a crucifix in a jar, peed on it, snapped a photo of it, and called it “Piss Christ.” The “art” was widely ignored until 1989 when it was displayed in the capital of Virginia. A visitor to the gallery was deeply offended and wrote a letter to the local paper. The letter caught the attention of the head of the American Family Association (AFA), who petitioned Congress to denounce the National Endowment of the Arts, a tax-payer funded federal agency, who had granted Serrano a total of $20,000 for the work.
People were not happy. They had paid for a photo of a jar of urine, literally something we all “create” several times a day.
Still, the liberal elites of the art world reminded us how illiterate and obtuse we were. They quickly rushed in to defend the work and the artist, vapidly described it as “powerful”, “important” and “contemporary”. Piss Christ even went on to win the Southeastern Centre for Contemporary Arts “Award in the Visual Arts.” Before long, Piss Christ was at the forefront of the culture war. Countless left-wing rags published endless articles decrying the “silly, uneducated, overly sensitive religious right”, and bloviated at how important Piss Christ was. They suggested that backwoods, redneck, knuckle-dragging, Bible-thumping Neanderthals clearly didn’t “get it.”
Their defense of the work, and the artist, can be summed up in the following sentence “artists have the right to publicly express themselves visually or otherwise, and that right must be protected, even at the risk of offending audiences.” In other words, like it or lump it … it is art, and art does not care about your feelings. Keep that in mind.
While the majority of American’s have watched in horror as statues of historical figures have been toppled all over the country, the very vocal minority that makes up the mob, media, and academia have cheered with delight because they have deemed the statues to be “offensive.” Got that? Offensive, as in serving to “offend.” The same “enlightened” minds that told us how important piss in a jar was to society, are the very ones who have framed the debate for destroying statues today. These are the hypocrites who told us, “artists have the right to publicly express themselves visually and that right must be protected even at the risk of offending audiences.”
But are statues “art”?
As we’ve seen with other definitions that change daily, this is a question whose answer varies based on the individual or organization you ask, subject matter involved, and the times in which it is asked. After all, art is in the eye of the beholder. It is hard to imagine anyone arguing that the Statue of Liberty, or Michelangelo’s David is not a work of “art”, however, who knows, that could change tomorrow. After all, the mob of muppet-babies is currently burning a statue of an elk, so it’s anyone’s guess what will offend them next. Still, a creation has a creator, who refers to their creation as art. If an elephant can stroke a brush over a canvas for a peanut, and the zoo can sell it as “elephant art”, so can a sculptor carve, mold or cast a statue and call it “art”, whether or not an audience finds it or the subject matter appealing is not the issue. The subject matter does not determine what is art. Go ahead … Google “poop art”, you will not be disappointed (on second thought, you probably will be). A statue is considered a sculpture, which is defined as a visual art form that operates in three dimensions. So a statue is a sculpture, and sculpture is art.
So what?
The point should be clear. The same egg-head intellectuals who defend urine in a jar, defined as “art” that offended a large portion of the population, should be defending all art regardless of its form or function, including statues in the public square. Serrano, and his champions, have defended his art for years because they know it is provocative and offensive to a particular demographic they tend to despise. When the tables are turned, however, the same rules no longer apply. It is no longer art, but an offensive hunk of poorly constructed steel and concrete to be pulled down and wished into the cornfield. It’s been over 30 plus years since Serrano peed in his jar, and it’s still making the rounds. It’s been 244 years since America’s founding and 150 years since the civil war, and so-called offensive works of art have been erected to remind us of how far we’ve come, and the bloody conflict 600,000 American’s lost their lives fighting. They’re now coming down, so who knows, perhaps in 120 years, Piss Christ will have outlived its usefulness and “importance” to society, although it is doubtful. After all, artists have the right to publicly express themselves visually or otherwise, and that right must be protected, even at the risk of offending (the correct) audiences (who paid for it with tax dollars). If Piss Christ has a right to exist, be displayed and defended, so does a statue that a small handful of perpetually angry people find offensive. Like it or lump it, it is art … and art does not care about your feelings. Therefore, art is awful!