It’s funny because Piss Christ is my most known work, my most infamous work and people say “what were you trying to say with it?” And actually, I wasn’t even thinking about what I was trying to say. I just did it. Piss Christ is the first immersion, the first time I put and dropped an object into the bodily fluid. And it was piss, it was Christ, so naturally I had to call it Piss Christ. I wasn’t thinking about if it was blasphemous.
It’s a crucifix, particularly, and a rosary, it’s something that people handle. They rub it, they pray to it, they wear it. But they really don’t think about what it really means. And the crucifix, the rosary, it’s all you know, it’s a symbol. It’s a symbol of the way Jesus Christ died on the cross. And when he died on that cross for three days and the Romans, you know, they made sure that he was dead by probably stabbing him and putting a spear through him. Everything came out. All the liquids, the blood, the piss, the shit, everything came out. So if this Christ offends you in some way, if it attacks your sensibility in some way, maybe you should think about what the crucifixion actually symbolizes. It’s not this aesthetic little thing that you can carry around as a fashion item. You know, it symbolizes the death of Christ, which was a horrific way for anyone to die.
The first time it Piss Christ came into prominence was, you know, more than two years after I made it, when it was denounced in Congress in 1989. And because of the fact that there were so many senators and congressmen, people were upset about Piss Christ because they had been part of the exhibition and an award that I had gotten, not from the NEA, the National Endowment for the Arts, but from another organization that had funds.
[which/it] started the culture wars of 1989. And I have to say I’m very happy that if I provoke some kind of thought, even if I intended that it happened, because it means that the work is alive with meaning and also with problems for some people.
