Andres Serrano: Infamous Beauty

Andres Serrano is a photographer who has rewritten the history of the American cultural scene. His work has dealt with social issues, sexuality, racial intolerance, and the darker aspects of American history for forty years, and for this he is admired and hated in equal measure. The debate in the U.S. Senate over his most scandalous photograph, Piss Christ, and other controversial works has raised questions about freedom of expression, artistic autonomy, and the boundaries the government should set when funding art projects. This schism became known as the “culture wars” and continued in the United States throughout the 1990s.

Serrano explores several truly charged topics: in his Infamous series, he documents objects and products that have overt or covert racist overtones, from swastikas and depictions of lynchings to caricatures of African Americans on consumer product packaging. He portrays followers of the Ku Klux Klan (Klan), homeless New York subway riders (Nomads) whose faces deliberately resemble Renaissance portraits and details of firearms (Objects of Desire). Another dimension of his work is the emphasis on the aesthetic at a time when beauty in art is often perceived as something undesirable. This unique book of more than 140 photographs, following the exhibition of the same name in DOX, presents a view of his work not in closed chronological cycles, but in a dialogue between current photographs and older works. It also offers an essay by the artist, written especially for the occasion, and an expert study and commentary by the exhibition's curator, Otto M. Urban.