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News- Australia
The Serrano Affair
Melbourne's Archbishop Pell leads the Christian resistance against blasphemous art
By Michael Gilchrist
Christianity--and especially Catholicism--has long been regarded as a "soft" target for Australia's media, artistic, and entertainment industries.
"Both the name and the image "Piss Christ" not only demean Christianity but also represent a grossly offensive, scurrilous and insulting treatment of Christianity's most sacred and holy symbol."
Archbishop Pell indicated that he was not opposed to protests against the exhibition, provided they were "peaceful and law-abiding."
Serrano himself dubbed Potts "spineless" and a "coward" and urged art lovers to boycott the gallery's Rembrandt exhibition.
Just over a year after being appointed to head Australia's largest diocese, Archbishop George Pell has achieved an impressive reputation for episcopal leadership, especially following his decisive intervention against a blasphemous exhibition by American photographer Andres Serrano.
The Serrano exhibition included photos of: a crucifix immersed in urine (the infamous "Piss Christ"), a soutained priest bound and gagged with a dog's collar over his mouth, a photo of a bloodied naked woman with a person dressed as a cardinal walking away from her, mutilated animals, a woman masturbating an animal, and other similar "works of art."
The first inklings of the shock waves to come appeared in a report in a Melbourne newspaper on August 6, 997, which indicated that an exhibition of Serrano's works--which had "caused outrage in Europe"--would be shown at the National Gallery of Victoria in October as part of the Melbourne Festival. The report noted that when the pictures had been shown at the Gröniger Museum in tolerant Amsterdam, protesters had tried to fire-bomb the building and the number of bomb threats caused the police to close the museum for the first time in its history.
Yet the senior curator of photography at the National Gallery, Isobel Crombie, enthused in the gallery's official journal about the forthcoming Serrano exhibition:
In October, the National Gallery of Victoria is pleased to present Australia's first major survey of the photographs of Andres Serrano. Comprising more than 60 of his most important images from throughout his career, A History of Andres Serrano will provide audiences in this country with a rare opportunity to engage one of the most controversial and exciting of contemporary artists.
Open season on Christians
Frank Devine, a columnist in the national daily The Australian, offered a different perspective:
As for Serrano's being internationally recognized, he was a fringe dweller of a 1980s New York school, with strongly homosexual ambiance, of shock-schlock photographers, the most famous of whom is Robert Mapplethorpe. Suddenly, in 1989, Serrano himself became famous. A publicity-hungry New York senator, Al D'Amato, tore up a reproduction (not a $100,000 print!) of "Piss Christ" in the Senate.
The American critic Edward Leblow writes that "after the shouting [over D'Amato's performance] died down, the only ringing in Serrano's ears was the 'cha-ching, cha-ching' of the steadily increasing sales and prices of his works.... [Serrano] has been portrayed as balancing the sacred and the profane, but once you strip away such self-serving art rhetoric, you find him tip-toeing his art between political and commercial advertising.
In Australia, however, the self-appointed custodians of political correctness, while ever ready to invoke Australia's "multi-culturalism" in defending the concerns of the more fashionable religious and ethnic minorities, have been noticeably reluctant to take note of the Christian two-thirds of the population and their sacred symbols.
A recent Adelaide Festival promotional poster showed the Virgin Mary with an accordion in her arms in place of the child Jesus, while a local update of the Last Supper, reproduced in a national daily earlier this year, showed a painting of a nude female in place of Christ and artists in place of the twelve apostles. Christianity--and especially Catholicism--has long been regarded as a "soft" target by Australia's media, artistic, and entertainment industries.
Enough is enough
However, with the announcement of the forthcoming Serrano exhibition--an in particular the presence of the "Piss Christ"--many of Victoria's Christians concluded that "enough was enough," and that the bottom line had finally been breached in terms of a crude, blatant disregard for Christian sensitivities.
Prior to the exhibition's opening on October 10, a number of religious and community groups made their concerns known to both the National Gallery and the Victorian government. Leaders of all the major Christian denominations, as well as representatives of the Jewish and Islamic communities, in a joint statement presented by Archbishop George Pell, branded the offending work "highly offensive to most people's sense of decency."
Archbishop Pell, who soon became the effective leader of the resistance, argued that the conjunction of a sacred symbol such as the crucifix and excrement was "recognized universally as deeply insulting." He appeared regularly in the mass media expressing his views clearly and forcefully; he also approach the Gallery's director, Dr. Timothy Potts, in September, to express his concerns and to call at least for the exclusion of "Piss Christ" from the Serrano exhibition. Potts declined, citing the importance of "freedom of artistic expression." (Curiously, the National Gallery itself had decided that some of Serrano's most objectionable photographs should not be displayed at the National Gallery; they were shown at a small private gallery in a Melbourne suburb.)
The archbishop next asked the Victorian premier, Jeff Kennett, to tell Potts to remove the picture. Kennett, who admitted that the photo was "not my cup of tea," conveyed the archbishop's concerns to Potts but declined to order him to remove the picture.
Turning to the courts
Following these setbacks, Archbishop Pell announced that the Catholic Church would be seeking an injunction in the Victorian Supreme Court to stop the exhibition of Serrano's most offensive picture. On October 8, Justice David Harper heard Cliff Pannam, appearing for the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, describe such a public display as "a common-law misdemeanor or blasphemous libel" and "indecent or obscene under the Summary Offences Act."
In an affidavit before the court, Archbishop Pell said that as the chief teacher of one million Catholics he was responsible for guiding them in matters of faith and morality. In that role he could not accept the exhibit, he explained:
Both the name and the image "Piss Christ" not only demean Christianity but also represent a grossly offensive, scurrilous and insulting treatment of Christianity's most sacred and holy symbol. It is calculated to outrage the feelings of Catholics and other Christians.
The following day, however, Justice Harper declined to issue the injunction. While he conceded that Serrano's picture was "deeply offensive to many Christians," he claimed that there was no legal reason for the court to find it blasphemous libel and ban its display. It was not his role to be an art critic, he added; his decision was simply based on the law.
On the same day (October 9), following this announcement, Archbishop Pell called a media conference at the archdiocese offices and read out a statement to a packed room of media representatives. He said he was disappointed that his application for an injunction had not succeeded, but said that he had "no regrets about taking the action in the Victorian Supreme Court."
He noted that "a significant proportion of the Victorian community--both Christian and non-Christian--were, and still are, outraged by this picture, particularly since it will be on display in such a prestigious public gallery as the National Gallery of Victoria." He said that he and others "were duty-bound to do our utmost to use whatever civil law processes were available to us to prevent this gross outrage from continuing."
A call for demonstrations
The archbishop made his views on the whole episode very clear:
I repeat that I am disappointed, but I hope and pray that as a result of this action we have taken, the Gallery trustees, and indeed the government, will show more sensitivity in the future to the wishes of such a significant proportion of the Victorian community.
I reaffirm our belief that the Christian majority in this state--some 3 million people--should be accorded the same respect given to minority groups. In Australia's pluralist, multicultural society, sensitivity to the religious feelings of all the diverse groups in the community must surely extend to the feelings of Christians.
He remarked pointedly that had the Serrano pictures offended against politically-correct targets, they would probably not have been accepted in the first place.
In response to some lively questioning, Archbishop Pell indicated that he was not opposed to protests against the exhibition, provided they were "peaceful and law-abiding." In fact, a circular had already been sent out on October 3 to "Principals of Catholic Primary and Secondary Schools in the Archdiocese of Melbourne" regarding the Serrano exhibition.
The circular, which was signed by the Director of Catholic Education, made it clear that it was written at the request of the archbishop. It read in part:
I shall be most appreciative if you could bring this travesty of the crucifix and other matters held sacred to Christians to the notice of your school staff and families. All in your school community are invited to remember this matter in prayer, and to give your support to the protest in whatever way possible.
Security breaks down
On the day of the exhibition's official opening--Friday, October 10--several hundred peaceful demonstrators, including many Catholic school students, kept up a presence outside the National Gallery throughout the day, and into the following day as well.
However, in a dramatic turn of events, two attacks in as many days--on October 11 and 12--took place against the "Piss Christ" picture. The first occurred when a Sydney man attempted to remove the picture, and then kicked it, damaging its cover and frame. Despite heightened security measures, on the following day an 18-year-old "art critic" attacked the picture with a hammer after his 16-year-old colleague had distracted the guards' attention by kicking another exhibit.
Shortly after those incidents, and equally dramatically, Potts announced to the media that at a meeting of the Gallery trustees and local authorities, it had been decided to close the Serrano exhibition immediately. "The Gallery felt," said Potts, "in all the current circumstances, it could no longer guarantee the security of the visitors and staff of the Gallery or of the works of art." He might have mentioned that just next door to the Serrano show, a $700-million Rembrandt exhibition would have been facing difficulties with its insurance coverage (not to mention with its ability to attract paying customers) if the demonstrations continued and the security problems persisted.
Outrage on all sides
In the aftermath of the removal of the Serrano exhibition, Potts castigated Archbishop Pell in the press for making "this a major issue and succeeding in whipping up such a degree of public hysteria that you had to be here to believe it." A comparable exhibition of "art--staged in, say, Pakistan or Iran--that targeted the sacred symbols of Islam might have given the gallery director a clearer perspective on such "hysteria." Claims of "artistic freedom" might not have enjoyed a particularly sympathetic hearing in those places.
In any case, Melbourne's art elite, having decided that the Serrano works were appropriate subjects for the taxpayer-funded National Gallery of Victoria--despite the loud public protests that had occurred even when the same pictures were displayed at small, specialty galleries catering to homosexuals in the United States--could hardly plead ignorance as to the public uproar that this exhibit was likely to arouse.
Following the attacks on "Piss Christ" and the closing of the exhibition, Archbishop Pell told the media: "I understand the sense of outrage that has prompted these attacks on the image and I repeat my support of peaceful and legal protest only."
At the same time there were predictable cries of outrage from the country's "progressive" artists, who demanded the resignation of Timothy Potts. A Sydney rally on October 25, organized by "Artists Against Ignorance," cited the director's "lack of true commitment to contemporary art and his poor understanding of its social function." Serrano himself dubbed Potts "spineless" and a "coward" and urged art lovers to boycott the Gallery's Rembrandt exhibition. Serrano also suggested that if the exhibition had taken place in New York, the gallery would have hired security personnel who would have beaten any demonstrators to a pulp.
Artistic indignation was redoubled when, apparently spurred on by events in Melbourne, someone stole an exhibit called "Virgin in a Condom," by Tania Kovats, from a display in a Sydney gallery. The piece depicted a statuette of the Virgin Mary, wrapped in a condom. Resistance to this offensive exhibit from Sydney's Catholic leadership had been relatively muted.
No popular appeal
But away from the rarefied circles of the artistic elites, a perhaps more representative indicator of popular thinking on the whole affair came in two separate telephone polls taken by Melbourne's Herald-Sun. In the first, over 90 percent of a near-record number of phone-in calls supported the removal of the "Piss Christ" picture from the exhibition; in the second, 86 percent endorsed the closing of the exhibition.
At the end of October, the issue was still alive when New York's Cardinal John O'Connor faced a media conference during his visit to Melbourne, where he was serving as the Holy Father's representative for the centenary celebrations of St. Patrick's Cathedral. In answer to a question about Archbishop Pell's handling of the Serrano affair, the American cardinal was emphatic in saying that he completely supported Archbishop Pell's stand, calling it "a prudent and sensitive approach," and saying that he would have adopted the same strategy in a similar situation.
In the end, thanks to Archbishop Pell's strong leadership and the support of numerous Melbourne and Australian Christians and non-Christians, the National Gallery of Victoria and the others who had spent their tie invoking artistic license at the expense of religious sensibilities may have cause to think twice in the future before undertaking another show like the Serrano exhibition.
Meanwhile Melbourne's active homosexuals, who clearly resented Archbishop Pell's role in the demise of the Serrano show, have been mounting their own offensives, using the visit by Cardinal O'Connor as an opportunity to stage a demonstration in St. Patrick's Cathedral. With television and press cameras in tow, a group of them presented themselves for Holy Communion, wearing pink sashes to proclaim their identity as practicing homosexuals. Archbishop Pell himself declined to administer the Blessed Sacrament to some sash-wearing homosexuals, but gave them a blessing instead.
Archbishop Pell's leadership on these public issues--together with his reform of seminary formation and his new appointment of solid orthodox Catholics to head the archdiocese education and health services--have come within 18 months of his appointment as Archbishop of Melbourne. What will come next? Stay tuned.
Michael Gilchrist is the editor of AD2000, an Australian religious monthly published in Melbourne.