Piss Sunday

The following article and a follow up have been lying around for a while but never made it to the Quill due to other pieces pushing through.
As a former Catholic, and as someone who even today is not opposed to being called a Christian, I felt I had every right to use the symbols of the Church and resented being told not to - Andres Serrano

When on Palm Sunday in April intolerant French Catholics attacked Andres Serrano's Piss Christ photograph in Avignon, France, they placed themselves on a par with their fellow bigots in Islam who used violence in a bid to suppress cartoons of their prophet Mohammed, sketched for a Danish newspaper a few years ago. Mohammed’s men also wanted the cartoonists killed. What fate may might have befallen Serrano had the French men of god stumbled across him on their mission of Christian love is anybody’s guess. Would they have waited until he reached hell before having him burnt?

The general Serrano controversy long predated the particularity of the Avignon incident. In 1987 he placed a plastic crucifix in a glass of his own piss in New York ostensibly to highlight the misuse that religion is often put to: the ‘billion-dollar Christ-for-profit industry’ and as ‘condemnation of those who abuse the teachings of Christ for their own ignoble ends.’  Even in recessions there is always work for those who want to turn a dollar in the religion business. Perhaps that genuinely was Serrano’s motivation although it looks pretty much as if he wanted to take the piss out of Catholics who on Palm Sunday in turn took their Christ out of the piss as part of an anti-Blasphemy campaign.

Wind up or not, it is hard to fathom that there is such a thing as the medieval concept of blasphemy. Religious people still want their opinions privileged through enshrining anti-blasphemy in law so that their reason-defying beliefs can be protected from free inquiry. They can then scream ‘you offend me’ and have you officially gagged or jailed, in some cases even killed. In Ireland they actually have a blasphemy law in place, it being slower than other parts of the world in shaking off religious infringement on civil liberties. Not that the Irish blasphemy law works too well as a deterrent, with people all too willing to challenge the myths and superstitions propagated by the practitioners of priestcraft. 

When Serrano first launched his work in the US, the violence-endorsing right wing Christian bigot Senator Jesse Helms was infuriated, ranting that Serrano was not an artist but a jerk. Yet, for all its jerk attributes Piss Christ won the South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition. Not that the quality of the competition was beyond question if something as unimaginative as Piss Christ won. That aside, it provoked a heated debate about arts funding. Award winning maybe, but it is hard to assert with any measure of plausibility that a great deal of imaginative input resulted in Serrano’s creative output.

That however is a secondary consideration. Despite its questionable artistic merit it threatened only sensibilities not human life. For all his self righteous posturing, Jesse the Jerk for Jesus supported right wing Christian death squad leaders such as El Salvador’s Roberto ‘Major Bob’ D’Aubisson, whom he described as a very religious man.  No querying it, D’Aubisson was religious although it never prevented him from murdering other religious men such as Archbishop Oscar Romero. In fact it might have ignited his murderous instincts. It is a tale as old as religious men themselves and highlights what religious men have long done, kill supposedly because they love god. Maybe killing is just religious art and should be funded accordingly.  Kill a commie for Christ, parade his body in the street, title it Christian justice and have 12000 evangelical idiots go hungry just so that they can fill the artistic collection bucket.

Avignon was not the first time Serrano’s work provoked violent reaction, it having earlier been the target of physical attack in both Sweden and Australia. Sweden of all places was the more disappointing, where only low levels of religious contamination seem to register.  In Australia, where the god industry seems to flourish more, the archbishop of Melbourne unsuccessfully sought to have the painting banned from public display. Not enough for him to simply ignore it, he wanted to prevent others viewing it and making up their own minds on the demerits of its artistry. He saw it as his job to think and decide for others, many of whom would want little to do with him. Always the same with some religious types: they convince themselves that by shouting ‘gawd’ they can force everyone else to run for cover. Old god can always be relied on to provide the muscle for a bit of Christian bullying.

All sort of looks crazy but it is the type of antic that religious zealots get up to and then seek to make others cough up for.  They pray, societies pay. Their behaviour might be easy to laugh at but as Mencken observed when covering the Scopes Monkey Trial ‘their buffooneries were mistaken for humour. Now the clowns turn out to be armed, and have begun to shoot.’

Christians are often very violent people while all the time professing peace and love. Their lip licking contemplation of the violence of hell for their enemies gives the game away. When they make threatening noises over Piss Christ the response should be Piss Off.

26 comments:

  1. After sunday mass i usually go on the piss- seeing that alter wine drinking
    puts me in the mood- the sore head helps also-

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  2. Michaelhenry,

    but you don't piss in the wine

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  3. AM-

    I might piss in the wind the odd time- but never in the wine-

    Surly you dont suspect that the bishops piss in their own wine- hardly the blood of christ-

    Some name on a wine bottle- the blood of christ- would be a big sell in some areas-

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  4. Michaelhenry,

    they piss down the backs of their congregations and tell them its raining. And the poor fools praise the lord for having sent them holy rain!

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  5. Jesus has been used as a icon prop, tool, wedge to decimate lives &/or control &/or instigate divide/conquer/pecking order of worth of humanity worldwide. Piss on Christ portrayal is not brilliant but calculatingly clever, a deliberate in your face take that cops one on to the anger underpinning the games of religiosity.
    NB The art merit in construct/visual sense is a total DUD. It attracts attention because it rips into the psyche of believers (myself yes i believe in the Christ) and challenges them to take note...

    RE: 'Christians are often very violent people while all the time professing peace and love. Their lip licking contemplation of the violence of hell for their enemies gives the game away. When they make threatening noises over Piss Christ the response should be Piss Off.'
    Too generalised a statement re followers of Jesus because all religions have their share of nutters burning with hate and self righteousness but yes piss off ahaha is the correct response...

    My personal response 2 piss on christ was one of ho hum ok u had your moment of rage nexxxxxxxxxt... the more attention the uptight gave piss on christ the more the creator of it was fed what he wanted Reactions.
    I believe God is holy yes i do but for sure his followers can be vile and history to date proves it.
    Am slowly working on a painting called 'vomit on the vatican by an ex catholic.' It is merely cathartic and in the same vein i suppose as piss on christ but the dif is i do it lst for me and then for those who have or had no voice. Couldnt give a toss what others say but hope it brings comfort to survivors of clergy abuse to see it put out there.
    I come from a fiercely Catholic upbringing but have shrugged off guilt saturated bars of repression.

    Sanitised art is the bane of mankind. It is often through mediums such as art, poetry and song the truth reaches out to the common people and we rise up and fight on.
    Jesus has been portrayed as a masochist, a white supremacist, a black supremacist, a sado masochist, a liar, a fool, a madman, a poxed Pope, a poxed loyalist, a homosexual, a sexually repressive whackjob and on it goes. But Jesus remains who He is. King of King and Lord of Lords. Truth stands alone despite all the crap people glue onto it. Preach it sister ok just have :-) and PS michealhenry get your arse to an AA meeting if u have to grog up to handle mass :-)

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  6. If they ever manage to actually turn piss into wine ,then Anthony a cara I for one shall throw of my FSM strainer and forsake all his teachings and go on the piss with the bishops,untill then a cara as you rightly say we shall continue to take the piss outa them after all they are good tack for it,

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  7. SMH

    ‘Too generalised a statement re followers of Jesus because all religions

    have their share of nutters burning with hate and self righteousness but yes piss off ahaha is the correct response...’

    That’s why I said ‘Christians are often very violent people’ – not that all Christians are violent.

    ‘Am slowly working on a painting called 'vomit on the vatican by an ex catholic.'

    I hope you allow us to carry a copy of it.

    ‘But Jesus remains who He is. King of King and Lord of Lords.’

    You know I could never buy into that. But each to their own. You don’t practice your beliefs on anybody else. Which is how all religious people should live their lives.

    Marty,

    great to see you back. The problem is that they would tell us piss had been turned into wine only it still tastes like piss. You would imagine they would be able to transfrom the taste while they were at it!

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  8. I think they are to distracted spreading shit to concentrate on something usefull like making piss into wine Anthony.. mind you a wee wino was at Buckfast abbey on a weeks break,he went into the off licence and said since Im here in Buckfast I,ll try a bottle, an hour later he was pissed and lying face down in the abbey,s grounds,( yip you get it)along cane a monk, sees an opportunity and begats our wee friend, after the dirty deed was done he felt guilty and slips a £5 note into yer mans pocket,the next morning he wakes and finds the £5 in his pocket so of he goes to the off licence, another bottle of Buckfast and in a while he,s out for the count again face down in the abbey,s grounds, along comes the monk again and once more temptation takes hold of him and he gives in and begats the lad once more, again after the deed was done ,feeling guilty he places a £5 in our mans pocket, now this went on for a few days same routine, untill the lad goes into the off licence and the guy behind the counter who by now was well aware of our mans preference for the local beverage says "a bottle of Buckfast sir" "no" replies our man "give me a bottle of vodka that Buckfast is cutting the arse of me"!!

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  9. Marty,

    it is just as well John McGirr left us as he would have choked you for this!

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  10. Anthony do you think he,d tell me to piss off?

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  11. Marty,

    I think the likes of me and you pissed him off!!

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  12. @ Anthony when i finish this monstrous work of art will let u know here and you can feature it if u want NB thank you for the invite! Am so busy with work stuff no time to get into it properly. I did spent hours last week searching for fake vomit, got some and shops ran out of supplies as i needed so much ahhaah Suppose a cheaper way would be to visit a detoxification unit with a couple of buckets and collect (lolz) but clueless as to how i would preserve it on a canvas as the real stuff & there is a limit to my cathartic 'madness' chortle!

    @ Marty I wager John Mcgirr probably still reads the pensive quill... He did get served up stuff here that probably nowhere else he would get it dished so hard and he did kick back hard with his responses for quite a time... Come on back John McGirr It is OK to come back! There was always more to John McGirrs input than his being a punching bag for atheists and challenges from non atheists. He had depth but was ravaged with Catholicism in a way which made him easy pickings at times. I must say some of his stuff enraged me because I have spent over half me life debriefing myself from the doctrines...
    I bet you he prays for ya marty :-)

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  13. SMH.. Hi hon John Mc Girr praying for Anthony or me makes me cringe, we,d get chucked out of the church of the FSM for allowing heathens to practice superstitious crap on us. and my dear girl I think you may have an alternative motive for wanting the bold John back ...methinks perhaps you want him for a surrogate vomit provider.the only problem there hon is that instead of carrots that one invariably finds in a technicolour yawn, John produces religious bile and crap, well parceled mind you ,

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  14. SMH,talking of god vomit all in the one sentence reminds me of the last time I actually talked to god..There I was pissed, head down the great white telephone producing great amounts of technicolour yawns and crying out loudly OH GAWD!!!!

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  15. SMH,

    We look forward to getting your ‘monstrous work of art.’ You could also get real vomit by listening to Bishop Magee apologising for his cover ups.

    John McGirr can come back if he wishes. He was never a punch bag for atheists but I think he sensed how out of sync his views were here and got peeved over it. Earlier he made a serious intellectual input but then it all went pear shaped as he relied more on bias and less on logic.
    ‘He had depth but was ravaged with Catholicism in a way which made him easy pickings at times.’

    I think that is a fair summary. He left himself too exposed. While he took it seriously he should have realised that it was like insisting to us that the moon really was made of cheese. It simply would not compute.

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  16. Marty,

    You are so harsh on John McGirr!!

    Your description of ‘religious bile’ I found myself in agreement with. Religious sentiment does not annoy me but the bile does. The odd thing is that John was more than capable of producing solid arguments without resorting to bile and leaving himself open to ridicule. I found many of his arguments interesting but as time went on they became more outlandish. I could not abide by his outbursts over the wafer issue. This inability to stand disagreement is never a good ingredient in debate and perhaps in the end he was not suited for this blog where people can express whatever views they want.

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  17. '...perhaps in the end he was not suited for this blog where people can express whatever views they want.'

    Unless of course you disagree with the 'bearded one!'

    'Piss Christs' and 'vomit on the Vatican' are not something I care to stoop to debate. They are just gratuitiously offensive and reflect a level of hate and intolerance that I, as intolerant as I am, find impossible to understand.

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  18. John,

    you just couldn't resist! Welcome back if you are staying around. We did miss you!

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  19. Aye John welcome back a cara no more hissy fits or you,ll be bishoped,I agree with you crap art is as daft as religon,cant take either seriously, but good to see you have stood your ground a cara .

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  20. The prodigal son has returned! We must kill the fatted calf for you, John.

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  21. Alfie I,d rather roast a priest a cara ,

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  22. AM,

    Aye, I couldn't resist. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak!

    Marty,

    Sometime you just need time out. Sometimes you try to go away, but you look over your shoulder and risk being turned to salt.

    Alfie,

    Less of the PRODigal son! :)

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  23. @ John McGirr RE 'Piss Christs' and 'vomit on the Vatican' are not something I care to stoop to debate. They are just gratuitiously offensive and reflect a level of hate and intolerance that I, as intolerant as I am, find impossible to understand.'
    If you cannot understand just leave it be. I consider meself relatively tolerant with occasional surges of hate that flare up. Just let individuals be and work their way how they want to. That is all art is. Just voices and perspectives. Art does not fire real rounds just bullets of perspective.

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  24. must have missed this article on me travels.

    warm welcome back John.

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  25. Larry,

    'warm welcome back John.'

    Thanks, Larry.

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