The Resurrection of Piss Christ, 2011
Last week at AFC HQ we spent much time toiling away on a press release for an anonymous project we very much believe in. Remember the recent hoo-hah about Andres Serrano’s infamous photograph Piss Christ being destroyed in Paris? Well, we worked with a well-known artist to help get the word out about his response: a knowingly derivative, downloadable image of Christ in a different bottle of piss. This willfully anti-market, anti-collective profiteering from controversy, and anti-fundamentalist has produced a pseudo-immortal net based work: The Resurrection of Piss Christ. It begs your ability to download a file. The project launched yesterday, the day of Jesus Christ’s rising.
In the words of the artist:
Duplicating the same fate as its star subject, [Serrano’s] Immersion (Piss Christ) is subjected to the artificial immortality we now wield through the Internet. Our interconnectedness now transforms an act of destruction – through communication and distribution – into an act of preservation.
As a statement against fundamentalism, The Resurrection will fuel it.
As a statement against the commercial value of an intentionally contentious work, The Resurrection will feed and inflate it.
I denounce any act that attempts to silence an individuals thought or speech or expression. Simultaneously, I question the integrity of a work that provokes so ineloquently.
The Resurrection flaunts its infinite reproducibility. Coupled with my anonymity, it ignores the archaic mechanism upon which the art market balances itself.
The Resurrection exists beyond the marketplace. Do what you want with it.
Download the image here. Plan to remix the image? Send the results to artfagcity@gmail.com and we’ll post the highlights. We want to change the terms of this conversation. Live the dream of the net — short-lived immortality — and make a statement with this image.
{ 12 comments }
Can we guess who the artist is?
Yes. But I will not be able to confirm or deny any guesses.
I denounce any act that attempts to silence an individuals thought or speech or expression. Simultaneously, I question the integrity of a work that provokes so ineloquently.
paris or avignon — does it matter when corporeal, physical, sentient are removed from contemporary iterations of digital non-networking under the guise of inter-connectivity apart from questionable pathologies? no? beautiful image and questioning plenty.
Nice project! I’ll be sending a remix for sure.
kalalaumango – I’d like to see how you can remove corporeality, physicality and sentience from anything to do with art. If you prick us, do we not bleed?
Nice project! I’ll be sending a remix for sure.
kalalaumango – I’d like to see how you can remove corporeality, physicality and sentience from anything to do with art. If you prick us, do we not bleed?
another resurrection
http://i.imgur.com/Di8mk.png
this is aching to be a 20×200 print. i want.
As an anti-market piece I think it would be hard to convince the artist this would be a good idea, but I see what you’re saying. As a meme and an edition 20×200 would help circulate the piece.
actually, the artist doesn’t have to be convinced. the site says “Do what you want with it” i could go to 20×200 w/the idea to reproduce. with the file size shared, an 8×10 $20 edition could be made. “The Resurrection exists beyond the marketplace”, maybe not. if the profits go to a humanitarian cause, that ain’t a bad thing.
My bad. This is true. If the money raised was directed towards a fund that supported anonymous projects that could be an interesting use.
The artist is a person that had a lot of free time that day.
This is how artists teach the world about sensitivity.
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