Andrés Serrano Sold at Auction Prices

Photographer, b. 1950 -

(b New York, NY, 1950) Contemporary American photographer. From 1967 – 1969 Serrano attended the Brooklyn Museum of Art School. In his late 20’s Serrano started his photography work, which is influenced by Surrealism and his catholic background. Piss Christ featured in “Awards in the Visual Arts 7” by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in North Carolina in 1989, launched Serrano’s career because of the controversy surrounding it. Methodist Minister Reverend Wildmon, founder of the National Federation for Decency in 1977 (renamed the American Family Association in 1987), attacked Piss Christ because he was angered that the National Endowment for the Arts paid Serrano for this “obscene art.” This incident began the debate over what art public funds should support. Taking on portraiture, Serrano photographed people belonging to different social groups. His subject matter for these photos included members of the Ku Klux Klan, female bodybuilders, and New York’s homeless. In 2008, Serrano debuted his most recent work of human and animal feces. Serrano currently lives and works in New York, NY. (Credit: Christie’s New York, Post-War and Contemporary Art Afternoon Session, May 14, 2008, Lot 411.)