Admittedly, even now there have been a number of assumptions made on my part not least because I trust the titles the artists gave. However, I have little reason to question these and doubting their relationship to the images would cause complexities when trying to understand what is being shown.
What is being shown, beyond the visual elements already described? The cross is an image of such power for so many people that Serrano could be sure its inclusion would give the image instant and dominant implications. While more understated, this is true of Hockney's etching which shows, we can assume through other sources of information and physical similarity, the artist Picasso. The act of representing icons has been handled differently by each artist. Surprisingly, neither places the icon in a glorified position, in fact, for Serrano in particular, quite the opposite is true.
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.