In the early eighties, when Ronald Reagan's policy of deregulation was
contributing to great social and econorn.ic inequities, Andres Serrano came to maturity
as an artist. His work represents the politicization of the human body that, in the
ensuing years, became the focus of debates on AIDS, drugs, abortion, and euthanasia.
In his art, Serrano deals with bodily fluids in large Cibachromes that question
the realistic claims made for photography; at the same time, they portray these feared
substances with the seductive allure usually reserved for advertising. Thus, his work
unites culturally constructed codes for desire with substances usually considered
repugnant in Western culture. Marginalized by his African Cuban background, Serrano
has made images of such outsider groups as the homeless and the Ku Klux Klan. This
study will consider his development in the decade from 1983 to 1992, when he
completed his Morgue series. Although an artist's work extends beyond personal aims,
and represents far more than a mere sum of life's experiences, biographical considerations
still provide an excellent vantage point to understand Serrano's orientation to the
world. After briefly reviewing his childhood and continued connections to the Catholic
Church, this essay will undertake an analysis of his work as it relates to the artistic,
social, and political debates that inform it.
"I am drawn to subjects that border on the unacceptable," Andres Serrano
said in 1993, "because I lived an unacceptable life for so long."1 This "unacceptable life"
apparently began soon after his birth, in 1950, when he was abandoned by his father, a
merchant marine who had three other families living in his native Honduras. Brought
up in the predominantly Italian Williamsburg section of Brooklyn by an African Cuban
mother who did not speak English, and who was hospitalized on a number of occasions
for psychosis, Serrano quickly learned the meaning of being both marginalized and
emotionally on his own.
In spite of these difficulties or, perhaps, because of them, he found the
Metropolitan Museum of Art a safe haven; there, he spent hours looking at Renaissance
paintings. The experience was so intense that at twelve he decided to become an artist.
His attraction to these religious works may have strengthened his involvement in the
Catholic Church and contributed to his decision to be confirmed when he was thirteen.
Despite his strong interest in art and in the Church, he became a high school dropout
when he was fifteen.
Serrano's continued interest in art led him, at seventeen, to undertake two
years of study at the Brooklyn Museum School. Among his favorite instructors was the
African American painter Calvin Douglas. At the time, Serrano was painting in a style
reminiscent of Fernand Leger, which emphasized broad areas of color; other influences
during this apprenticeship period were Picasso and the abstract expressionists. Feeling