Quotes from Andres Serrano

I am an artist first and a photographer second.

I like the aesthetics of the Church.

An artist is nothing without his or her obsessions, and I have mine.

People have to find ways of explaining the work.

Being born, especially being born a person of color, is a political act in itself.

An artist is nothing without his or her obsessions, and I have mine.

Whenever possible, I operate outside the system.

Artists are a free society's greatest advocates and its best bulwarks. Their triumphs are civilization's triumphs.

I like going to Church for aesthetic reasons, rather than spiritual ones.

I have never voted in my life.

One of the things that I am happy about in my life as an artist is that I am not considered a Hispanic artist.

I like Church furniture.

I say things, but I say them indirectly. At the same time, I try to make my images as direct as possible.

I am drawn to Christ but I have real problems with the Catholic Church.

I have never been able to see myself as fitting into one category, and I have never been able to limit my contact with people to one group of people.

I usually refer to myself as Hispanic.

I have always felt that I am the sum total of my parts.

Oftentimes we love the thing we hate and vice versa.

I like to believe that rather than destroy icons, I make new ones.

My work has social implications, it functions in a social arena.

My use of the medium - photography - is in some ways traditional.

Some people have compared the Klan images to ecclesiastical figures.

Unfortunately, the Church's position on most contemporary issues makes it hard to take them seriously.

In my work, I explore my own Catholic obsessions.