Comparing and Contrasting Artist and Model with Piss Christ

As a photograph, Piss Christ is huge at 60 by 40 inches. This scale and the highly glossy surface of the Cibachrome print help to emphasise the image’s power. The picture and title together appear to simplify matters and we are led to believe that the liquid surrounding this cross and model of a crucified man is urine and that the man is a representation of Jesus Christ. The colour palette is limited to glowing oranges.

David Hockney’s etching deals almost solely in black ink on white paper, though some shades of grey are seen. The process of etching will have led to similarities between each image when the final production was produced insomuch as the drawing will have existed before being applied to the surface on which it now exists. The composition shows two men sitting at a table, one dressed, one naked, looking in the direction of each other. They sit in fron

This is not a concern Serrano has to deal with, displaying, I believe, an unaltered photographic image. The camera has been used to capture one angle of a three dimensional situation. Photographic techniques often encourage the use of focus sometimes resulting in exaggerated (compared to the naked eye) areas of hard and soft edge and form. Interestingly, the central area of focus in Piss Christ, the left side of the cross and Christ’s left forearm and hand, is similar to a central area of focus in Artist and Model, with Hockney’s arm lying firmly on the table. They do perhaps serve a comparable purpose with the arms open in a crucifixion showing an offering in sacrifice and Hockney’s arm being the connection between teacher and student with the offered hand representing a desire to be taken and guided by the master.

There is little doubt that Piss Christ intentionally plays with controversy. Placing one of the ultimate religious symbols in bodily waste has clear connotations for the artist’s attitude towards it. Yet without the title or any knowledge of how it was created, this image would not shock but be open to appreciation purely as an exercise of beauty. It is not unreasonable to assume that Serrano wanted to open a much broader discussion than one surrounding aesthetics. As Cynthia Freeland notes in But Is It Art? (2001), “Serrano is a member of a minority group in the United States (he is part Honduran and part Afro-Cuban)” and in this group “bodily suffering and bodily fluids have been depicted for millennia as sources of religious power and strength”. From this we can ascertain that urine is not considered shameful as it often is in our own culture, but as natural. While this goes some way to altering the view that this was created to shock, the underlying source of disgust for many is the title which uses slang, abusive language from the same culture which finds urine distasteful. Because of this, discounting any sense of sensationalism in the face of naivety or cultural difference is out of the question.

Some topics in this essay:
David Hockney’s, Piss Christ, Picasso Hockney’s, David Hockney, Artist Model, Model Hockney’s, Honduran Afro-Cuban”, Andres Serrano’s, Firstly Picasso, , artist model, piss christ, david hockney, hockney’s etching, central focus, hockney’s arm, andres serrano’s,